UNIVERSIT     OF  CALIFORNIA,  SAN  DIEGO 


3  1822022364707 


;. 


3  1822  02236  4707 


Social  Sciences  &  Humanities  Library 

University  of  California,  San  Diego 
Please  Note:  This  item  is  subject  to  recall. 

Date  Due 


MAY  *  3  1887 


famous  (HJomeiu 


HARRIET     MARTINEAU. 


Already  published : 

GEORGE  ELIOT.     By  Miss  Blind. 
EMILY  BRONTE.     By  Miss  Robinson. 
GEORGE  SAND.     By  Miss  Thomas. 
MARY  LAMB.     By  Mrs.  Gilchrist. 
MARGARET  FULLER.     By  Julia  Ward  Howe. 
MARIA  EDGEWORTH.     By  Miss  Zimmern. 
ELIZABETH  FRY.     By  Mrs.  E.  R.  Pitman. 
THE  COUNTESS  OF  ALBANY.     By  Vernon  Lee. 
MARY  WOLLSTONECRAFT.     By  Mrs.  E.  R.  Pennell. 
HARRIET  MARTINEAU.   By  Mrs.  F.  Fenwick  Miller. 
RACHEL.     By  Mrs.  Nina  H.  Kennard. 
MADAME  ROLAND.     By  Mathilde  Blind. 
SUSANNA  WESLEY.     By  Eliza  Clarke. 
MARGARET  OP  ANGOULEME.    By  Miss  Robinson. 
MRS.  SIDDONS.     By  Mrs.  Nina  H.  Kennard. 
MADAME  DE  STAEL.     By  Bella  Duffy. 


HARRIET   MARTINEAU. 


BY 


MRS.  F.  FENWICK   MILLER. 


BOSTON: 
ROBERTS     BROTHERS. 

1887. 


Copyright,  1884, 
BY  ROBERTS  BROTHERS. 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS: 
JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE. 


PREFACE. 


THE  material  for  this  biographical  and  critical 
sketch  of  Harriet  Martineau  and  her  works 
has  been  drawn  from  a  variety  of  sources. 
Some  of  it  is  quite  new.  Her  own  Autobiog- 
raphy was  completed  in  1855  ;  and  there  has 
not  hitherto  been  anything  at  all  worth  calling 
a  record  of  the  twenty-one  years  during  which 
she  lived  and  worked  after  that  date.  Even  as 
regards  the  earlier  period,  although,  of  course 
I  have  drawn  largely  for  facts  upon  the  Auto- 
biography, yet  I  have  found  much  that  is  new 
to  relate.  For  some  information  and  hints 
about  this  period  I  am  indebted  to  her  relatives 
of  her  own  generation,  Dr.  James  Martineau, 
and  Mrs.  Henry  Turner,  of  Nottingham,  as 
well  as  to  one  or  two  others.  With  reference 
to  the  latest  twenty-one  years  of  her  life,  my 
record  is  entirely  fresh,  though  necessarily 


Vl  PREFACE. 

brief.  Mrs.  Chapman,  of  Boston,  U.  S.  A., 
has  written  a  volume  in  completion  of  the 
Autobiography,  which  should  have  covered  this 
later  period  ;  but  her  account  is  little  more 
than  a  repetition,  in  a  peculiar  style,  of  the 
story  that  Miss  Martineau  herself  had  told,  and 
leaves  the  later  work  of  the  life  without  syste- 
matic record.  As  a  well-known  critic  remarked 
in  Macmillan —  "This  volume  is  one  more  illus- 
tration of  the  folly  of  intrusting  the  composi- 
tion of  biography  to  persons  who  have  only 
the  wholly  irrelevant  claim  of  intimate  friend- 
ship." But  it  should  be  remembered  that 
when  Miss  Martineau  committed  to  Mrs.  Chap- 
man the  task  of  writing  a  memorial  sketch, 
and  when  the  latter  accepted  the  undertaking, 
both  of  them  believed  that  the  life  and  work 
of  the  subject  of  it  were  practically  over.  I 
have  reason  to  know  that  if  Harriet  Martineau 
had  supposed  it  to  be  even  remotely  possible 
that  so  much  of  her  life  remained  to  be  spent 
and  recorded,  she  would  have  chosen  some  one 
more  skilled  in  literature,  and  more  closely 
acquainted  with  English  literary  and  political 
affairs,  to  complete  her  "Life."  Having  once 


PREFACE.  vil 

asked  Mrs.  Chapman  to  fulfill  the  task,  how- 
ever, Harriet  Martineau  was  too  loyal  and  gen- 
erous a  friend  to  remove  it  from  her  charge ; 
and  Mrs.  Chapman,  on  her  side,  while  contin- 
ually begging  instructions  from  her  subject  as 
to  what  she  was  to  say,  and  while  doubtless 
aware  that  she  would  not  be  adequate  to  the 
undertaking  which  had  grown  so  since  she 
accepted  it,  yet  would  not  throw  it  off  her 
hands.  But  her  volume  is  in  no  degree  a  rec- 
ord of  those  last  years,  which  constitute  nearly 
a  third  of  Harriet  Martineau's  whole  life.  I 
have  had  to  seek  facts  and  impressions  about 
that  period  almost  entirely  from  other  sources. 
My  deepest  obligations  are  due,  and  must  be 
first  expressed,  to  Mr.  Henry  G.  Atkinson,  the 
dearest  friend  of  Harriet  Martineau's  maturity. 
It  is  commonly  known  that  she  forbade,  by  her 
will,  the  publication  of  her  private  letters  ;  but 
she  showed  her  supreme  faith  in  and  value  for 
her  friend,  Mr.  Atkinson,  by  specially  exempt- 
ing him  from  such  prohibition.  Her  objection 
to  the  publication  of  letters  was  made  on  gen- 
eral grounds.  Her  own  letters  are  singularly 
beautiful  specimens  of  their  class ;  and  she 


viii       .  PREFACE. 

declared  that  she  would  not  mind  if  every  word 
that  ever  she  wrote  were  published  ;  but  she 
looked  upon  it  as  a  duty  to  uphold  the  principle 
that  letters  should  be  held  sacred  confidences, 
just  as  all  honorable  people  hold  private  con- 
versations, not  to  be  published  without  leave. 
But  in  authorizing  Mr.  Atkinson  to  print  her 
letters,  if  he  pleased,  she  maintained  that  she 
was  not  departing  from  this  principle  ;  for  it 
was  only  the  same  as  it  would  be  if  two  friends 
agreed  to  make  their  conversation  known.  I 
feel  deeply  grateful  to  Mr.  Atkinson  for  allow- 
ing me  the  privilege  of  presenting  some  of  her 
letters  to  the  public  in  this  volume,  and  of 
perusing  very  many  more. 

I  have  been  permitted,  also,  to  read  a  vast 
number  of  Harriet  Martineau's  letters  addressed 
to  other  friends  besides  Mr.  Atkinson,  and  how 
much  they  have  aided  me  in  the  following  work 
and  in  appreciating  her  personality,  may  easily 
be  guessed  ;  but,  of  course,  I  may  not  publish 
these  letters.  Amongst  many  persons  to  whom 
I  am  indebted  for  helping  me  to  "get  touch" 
with  my  subject  in  this  way,  I  must  specially 
thank  two.  Mr.  Henry  Reeve,  the  editor  of 


PREFACE.  ix 

the  Edinburgh  Review,  was  a  relative  and  inti- 
mate friend  of  Harriet  Martineau;  and  her 
correspondence  with  so  distinguished  a  man  of 
letters  was,  naturally,  peculiarly  interesting  — 
not  the  less  so  because  they  differed  altogether 
on  many  matters  of  opinion.  Her  letters,  which 
Mr.  Reeve  has  kindly  allowed  me  to  see,  have 
been  of  very  great  service  to  me.  Miss  F, 
Arnold,  of  Fox  How,  (the  youngest  daughter 
of  Dr.  Arnold,  of  Rugby,)  is  the  second  to 
whom  like  particular  acknowledgments  is  due. 
She  was  young  enough  to  have  been  Harriet 
Martineau's  daughter;  but  she  was  also  a 
beloved  friend,  and  was  almost  a  daily  visitor  at 
"The  Knoll"  during  the  later  years  of  Miss 
Martineau's  life.  The  letters  which  Miss 
Arnold,  during  occasional  absences  from  home, 
received  from  her  old  friend,  are  very  domestic, 
lively,  and  characteristic  of  the  writer.  It  has 
been  of  great  value  to  me  to  have  seen  all  the 
letters  that  have  been  lent  me,  but  especially 
these  two  sets,  so  different  and  yet  so  similiar 
as  I  have  found  them  to  be. 

I  have  visited  Norwich,  and  seen  the  house 
where    Harriet   Martineau    was   born ;    Tyne- 


x  PREFACE. 

mouth,  where  she  lay  ill ;  Ambleside,  where 
she  lived  so  long  and  died  at  last  ;  and  Birming- 
ham, to  see  my  valued  friends,  her  nieces  and 
nephew.  If  I  should  thank  by  name  all  with 
whom  I  have  talked  of  her,  and  from  whom  I 
have  learned  something  about  her,  the  list  would 
grow  over-long ;  and  so  I  must  content  myself 
with  thus  comprehensively  expressing  my  sense 
of  individual  obligations  to  all  who  have  laid 
even  a  small  stone  to  this  little  memorial  cairn. 

F.  F.  M. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    I. 

PAGE. 

THE  CHILD  AT  HOME  AND  AT  SCHOOL     .       .         i 

CHAPTER  II. 
EARLY  WOMANHOOD  ;   DEVELOPING  INFLUENCES      29 

CHAPTER   III. 
EARLIEST  WRITINGS 49 

CHAPTER    IV. 
GRIEF  STRUGGLE,  AND  PROGRESS      ...        67 

CHAPTER  V. 
THE  GREAT  SUCCESS 100 

CHAPTER  VI. 
FIVE  ACTIVE  YEARS 130 

CHAPTER  VII. 

FIVE  YEARS  OF   ILLNESS,  AND  THE  MESMERIC 

RECOVERY 155 


xii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

PAGE. 

THE  HOME  LIFE 178 

CHAPTER    IX. 
IN  THE  MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS  .        .        .      200 

CHAPTER  X. 
IN  RETREAT  ;  JOURNALISM 231 

CHAPTER   XL 
THE  LAST  YEARS 264 


HARRIET    MARTINE.AU. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  CHILD  AT  HOME  AND  AT  SCHOOL. 

WHEN  Louis  XIV.  of  France  revoked  the 
Edict  of  Nantes,  in  1688,  a  large  number  of 
the  Protestants  who  were  driven  out  of  France 
by  the  impending  persecutions  came  to  seek 
refuge  in  this  favored  land  of  liberty  of  ours. 
Many  who  thus  settled  in  our  midst  were 
amongst  the  most  skillful  and  industrious  work- 
ers, of  various  grades,  that  could  have  been 
found  in  the  dominions  of  the  persecuting  king 
who  drove  them  forth.  They  must  have  been, 
too,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  strong-hearted, 
clear  in  the  comprehension  of  their  principles, 
and  truthful  and  conscientious  about  matters  of 
opinion ;  for  the  cowardly,  the  weak,  and  the 
false  could  stay  in  their  own  land.  From  the 
good  stock  of  these  exiles  for  conscience-sake 
sprang  Harriet  Martineau. 

Her  paternal   Huguenot  ancestor  was  a  sur- 


2  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

geon,  who  was  married  to  a  fellow-country- 
woman and  co-religionist  of  the  name  of  Pierre. 
This  couple  of  exiles  for  freedom  of  opinion 
settled  in  Norwich,  where  the  husband  pursued 
his  profession.  Their  descendants  supplied  a 
constant  succession  of  highly-respected  sur- 
geons to  the  same  town,  without  intermission, 
until  the  early  part  of  this  century,  when  the 
line  of  medical  practitioners  was  closed  by  the 
death  of  Harriet  Martineau's  elder  brother  at 
less  than  thirty  years  old.  The  Martineau 
family  thus  long  occupied  a  good  professional 
position  in  the  town  of  Norwich. 

Harriet's  father,  however,  was  not  a  surgeon, 
but  a  manufacturer  of  stuffs,  the  very  names  of 
which  are  now  strange  in  our  ears — bomba- 
zines and  camlets.  His  wife  was  Elizabeth 
Rankin,  the  daughter  of  a  sugar-refiner  of  New- 
castle-on-Tyne.  A  true  Northumbrian  woman 
was  Mrs.  Martineau ;  with  a  strong  sense  of 
duty,  but  little  warmth  of  temperament ;  with 
the  faults  of  an  imperious  disposition,  and  its 
correlative  virtues  of  self-reliance  and  strength 
of  will.  These  qualities  become  abundantly 
apparent  in  her  in  the  story  of  her  relationship 
with  her  famous  daughter.  On  both  sides, 
therefore,  Harriet  Martineau  was  endowed  by 
hereditary  descent  with  the  strong  qualities  — 
the  power,  the  clear-headedness,  and  the  keen 


AT  HOME  AND  AT  SCHOOL.  3 

conscience — which  she  interfused  into  all  the 
work  of  her  life. 

Thomas  and  Elizabeth  Martineau,  her  father 
and  mother,  were  the  parents  of  eight  children, 
two  of  whom  became  widely  known  and  influ- 
ential as  thinkers  and  writers.  Harriet  was 
the  sixth  of  the  family,  and  was  born  at  Nor- 
wich, in  Magdalen  street,  on  the  I2th  of  June, 
1802,  the  mother  being  at  that  time  thirty 
I  years  old.  The  next  child,  born  in  1805,  was 
the  boy  who  grew  up  to  become  known  as  Dr. 
James  Martineau;  so  that  the  two  who  were  to 
make  the  family  name  famous  were  next  to 
each  other  in  age.  Another  child  followed  in 
this  family  group,  but  not  until  1811,  when 
Harriet  was  nine  years  old,  so  that  she  could 
experience  with  reference  to  this  baby  some  of 
that  tender,  protective  affection  which  is  such 
an  education  for  elder  children,  and  so  delight- 
ful to  girls  with  strong  maternal  instincts  such 
as  she  possessed. 

The  sixth  child  in  a  family  of  eight  is  likely 
to  be  a  personage  of  but  small  consequence. 
The  parents'  pride  has  been  somewhat  satiated 
by  previous  experiences  of  the  wonders  of  the 
dawning  faculties  of  their  children  ;  and  the 
indulgence  which  seems  naturally  given  to  "  the 
baby  "  gets  comparatively  soon  transferred 
from  poor  number  six  to  that  interloper  number 


4  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

seven.  Mrs.  Martineau,  too,  was  one  of  that 
sort  of  women  who,  as  they  would  say,  do  not 
"  spoil "  their  children.  Ready  to  work  for 
them,  to  endure  for  them,  to  struggle  to  pro- 
vide them  with  all  necessary  comforts,  and  even 
with  pleasures,  at  the  cost,  if  need  be,  of  per- 
sonal sacrifice  of  comfort  and  pleasure,  such 
mothers  yet  do  not  give  to  their  children  that 
bountiful  outpouring  of  tender,  caressing,  ma- 
ternal love,  which  the  young  as  much  require 
for  their  due  and  free  growth  as  plants  do  the 
floods  of  the  summer  sunshine.  To  starve  the 
emotions  in  a  child  is  not  less  cruel  than  to 
stint  its  body  of  food.  To  repress  and  chain 
up  the  feelings  is  to  impose  as  great  a  hardship 
as  it  would  be  to  fetter  the  freedom  of  the 
limbs.  Mothers  who  have  labored  and  suf- 
fered through  long  years  for  the  welfare  of  their 
children,  are  often  grieved  and  pained  in  after 
days  to  find  themselves  regarded  with  respect 
rather  than  with  fondness  ;  but  it  was  they 
themselves  who  put  the  seal  upon  the  fountains 
of  affection  at  the  time  when  they  might  have 
been  opened  freely — and  whose  fault  is  it  if, 
later,  the  outflow  is  found  to  be  checked  for 
evermore  ? 

The  pity  of  it  is  that  such  mischief  is  often 
wrought  by  parents  who  love  their  children 
intensely,  but  who  err  in  the  management  of 


A  T  HOME  AND  A  T  SCHOOL.  5 

them  for  want  of  the  wisdom  of  the  heart,  the 
power  of  sympathetic  feeling,  which  is  seen  so 
much  stronger  sometimes  in  comparatively  shal- 
low natures  than  in  the  deeper  ones  that  have 
really  more  of  love  and  of  self-sacrifice  in  their 
souls.  Those  who  lack  tenderness  either  of 
manner  or  feeling,  those  to  whom  the  full  and 
free  expression  of  affection  is  difficult  or  seems 
a  folly,  may  perhaps  be  led  to  reflect,  by  the 
story  of  Harriet  Martineau's  childhood,  on  the 
suffering  and  error  that  may  result  from  a 
neglect  of  the  moral  command  :  "  Parents,  pro- 
voke not  your  children  to  wrath." 

"  My  life  has  had  no  spring,"  wrote  Harriet 
Martineau,  sadly  ;  yet  there  was  nothing  in  the 
outer  circumstances  of  her  childhood  and  youth 
to  justify  this  feeling.  Her  mother's  temper 
and  character  were  largely  responsible  for  what 
Harriet  calls  her  "  habit  of  misery "  during 
childhood.  It  is  right  to  explain,  however,  that 
this  unhappiness  was  doubtless  partly  due  to 
physical  causes.  She  was  a  weakly  child,  her 
health  having  been  undermined  by  the  dis- 
honesty of  the  wet  nurse  employed  for  her 
during  the  first  three  months  of  her  life.  The 
woman  lost  her  milk,  and  managed  to  conceal 
the  fact  until  the  baby  was  found  to  be  in 
an  almost  dying  condition  from  the  conse- 
quences of  want  of  nourishment.  How  far  her 


6  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

frequent  ill-health,  during  many  succeeding 
years,  was  to  be  ascribed  to  this  cannot  be 
known  ;  but  her  mother  naturally  attributed  all 
Harriet's  delicacy  of  health  to  this  cause,  even 
the  deafness  from  which  she  suffered,  although 
this  did  not  become  pronounced  till  she  was 
over  twelve  years  of  age. 

Her  deafness,  which  was  the  most  commonly 
known  of  her  deficiencies  of  sensation,  was  not 
her  earliest  deprivation  of  a  sense.  She  was 
never  able  to  smell,  that  she  could  remember; 
and  as  smell  and  taste  are  intimately  joined 
together,  and  a  large  part  of  what  we  believe 
to  be  flavor  is  really  odor,  it  naturally  followed 
that  she  was  also  nearly  destitute  of  the  sense 
of  taste.  Thus  two  of  the  avenues  by  which 
the  mind  receives  impressions  from  the  outer 
world  were  closed  to  her  all  her  life,  and  a 
third  was  also  stopped  before  she  reached  wo- 
manhood. The  senses  are  the  gates  by  which 
pleasure  as  well  as  pain  enter  into  the  citadel 
where  consciousness  resides.  Of  all  the  senses, 
those  which  most  frequently  give  entrance  to 
pleasure  and  seldomest  to  pain,  were  those  which 
she  had  lost.  "When  three  senses  out  of  five 
are  deficient,"  as  she  said,  "the  difficulty  of 
cheerful  living  is  great,  and  the  terms  of  life 
are  truly  hard." 

She  suffered  greatly,  even  as  a  little  child, 


AT  HOME  AND  AT  SCHOOL.  7 

from  indigestion.  Milk  in  particular  disagreed 
with  her;  but  it  was  held  essential  by  Mrs. 
Martineau  that  children  should  eat  bread  and 
milk,  and  for  years  poor  Harriet  endured  daily 
a  lump  at  her  chest  and  an  oppression  of  the 
spirits,  induced  by  her  inability  to  digest  her 
breakfast  and  supper.  Nightmares  and  cause- 
less apprehensions  in  the  day  also  afflicted  the 
nervous  and  sensitive  girl,  and  she  had  "hardly 
any  respite  from  terror." 

A  child  so  delicate  in  health  could  not  have 
been  very  happy  under  any  home  conditions. 
Only  a  truly  wise  and  tender  maternal  guardian- 
ship could  have  made  the  life  of  such  an  one  at 
all  tolerable;  but  Harriet  Martineau  was  one 
of  the  large  family  of  a  sharp-tempered,  mas- 
terful, stern,  though  devoted  mother,  whose 
cleverness  found  vent  in  incessant  sarcasm,  and 
in  whom  the  love  of  power  natural  to  a  capable, 
determined  person  degenerated,  as  it  so  often 
does  in  domestic  life,  into  a  severe  despotism. 

Mrs.  Martineau's  circumstances  were  such  as 
to  increase  her  natural  tendency  to  stern  and 
decided  rule.  Dr.  Martineau  tells  me  that  all 
who  knew  his  mother  feel  that  Harriet  does 
not  do  justice  in  her  "Autobiography"  to  that 
mother's  nobler  qualities,  both  moral  and  intel- 
lectual, and  especially  the  latter.  Harriet  and 
James  Martineau,  like  so  many  other  men  and 


8  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

women  of  mark,  were  the  children  of  a  mother 
of  uncommon  mental  capacity.  Her  business 
faculties  were  so  good,  and  her  judgment  so 
clear,  that  her  husband  (a  man  of  a  sweet  and 
gentle  disposition)  invariably  took  counsel  with 
her  about  all  his  affairs,  and  acted  by  her  advice. 
There  are  still  inhabitants  of  Norwich  who 
remember  Mrs.  Martineau,  and  their  testimony 
of  her  is  identical  with  her  son's.  "She  was 
the  ruling  spirit  in  that  house,"  says  one  of 
them.  "Whatever  was  done  there,  you  under- 
stood that  it  was  she  who  did  it."  The  way  in 
which  this  gentleman  came  to  know  so  much 
of  her  corroborates  Dr.  Martineau's  declaration 
that  "she  was  really  devoted  to  her  children, 
and  would  do  anything  for  them;  if  we  were 
miserable  in  our  childhood  (a  fact  which  he 
does  not  dispute)  it  could  not  be  said  to  be  con- 
sciously her  fault."  Mr. was  the  husband 

of  a  lady  who  had  been  reared  from  early  child- 
hood by  Mrs.  Martineau,  having  been  adopted 
by  her  simply  in  order  to  provide  her  little 
daughter,  Ellen,  who  was  nine  years  younger 
than  Harriet,  with  a  child  companion  somewhat 
about  her  own  age.  This  lady,  her  widowed 
husband  tells  me,  retained  a  most  warm 

admiration  and  affection   for   Mrs.    Martineau. 

x 

Mothers  who  have  brought  up  eight  children 
of  their  own  can  appreciate  the  self-devotedness 


A  T  HOME  AND  A  T  SCHOOL.  9 

of  this  mother  in  receiving  a  ninth  child  by 
adoption  in  order  to  increase  the  well-being  of 
her  own  little  daughter. 

Several  other  instances  were  told  to  me  of 
Mrs.  Martineau's  benevolence  and  kindness  of 
disposition.  Young  men  belonging  to  her 
religious  body,  and  living  in  lodgings  in  Nor- 
wich, were  uniformly  made  welcome  to  her 
house,  as  a  home,  every  Sunday  evening.  One 
of  the  Norwich  residents,  -with  whom  I  have 
talked  about  her,  received  a  presentation  from 
her  to  the  Unitarian  Free  School,  and  after- 
wards, in  his  school  life,  met  with  constant 
encouragement  and  patronage  at  her  hands. 
He  tells  me  that  he  has  never  forgotten  the 
stately  and  impressive  address  with  which  she 
gave  him  the  presentation  ticket,  concluding 
with  a  reminder  that  if  he  made  good  use  of 
this  opportunity  he  might  even  hope  one  day 
to  become  a  member  of  the  Town  Council  of 
that  city,- — and  at  that  giddy  eminence  her 
protigt  now  stands. 

For  the  sake  of  the  lesson,  it  should  be 
understood  that  she  was  thus  truly  benevolent 
and  kindly,  and  no  vulgar  termagant  or  scold. 
It  is  for  us  to  see  how  such  a  nature  can  be 
spoiled  for  daily  life  by  too  unchecked  a  course 
of  arbitrary  rule,  and  by  repression  of  outward 
signs  of  tenderness. 


10  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

Not  the  least  evil  which  a  stern  parent,  who 
maintains  a  reserve  of  demeanor,  and  who 
requires  strictness  of  discipline  within  the 
home,  may  do  to  himself  and  his  children,  is 
that  by  denying  expression  to  the  children's 
feelings  he  closes  to  himself  the  possibility  of 
knowing  what  goes  on  in  their  young  minds. 
Thus,  a  child  so  restrained  may  for  years  suffer 
under  a  sense  of  injustice,  and  of  undue 
favoritism  shown  to  another,  or  under  a  belief 
that  the  parent's  love  is  lacking,  when  a  few 
words  might  have  cleared  away  the  misappre- 
hension, and  given  the  child  the  natural  happi- 
ness of  its  age. 

Speaking  of  her  childhood,  Harriet  says  :  "  I 
had  a  devouring  passion  for  justice;  justice, 
first,  to  my  own  precious  self,  and  then  to  other 
oppressed  people.  Justice  was  precisely  what 
was  least  understood  in  our  house,  in  regard  to 
servants  and  children.  Now  and  then  I  des- 
perately poured  out  my  complaints ;  but  in 
general  I  brooded  over  my  injuries  and  those 
of  others  who  dared  not  speak,  and  then  the 
temptation  to  suicide  was  very  strong." 

The  most  vivid  picture  that  she  has  drawn  of 
the  discipline  under  which  such  emotions  were 
induced  in  her  is  found  in  a  story,  The  Crofton 
Boys,  which  she  wrote  during  a  severe  illness, 
and  under  the  impression  that  it  would  contain 


AT  HOME  AND  AT  SCHOOL.  II 

her  last  words  uttered  through  the  press.  Mrs. 
Proctor,  in  The  Crofton  Boys,  is  depicted  with 
remarkable  vividness  by  a  series  of  little 
touches,  and  in  a  succession  of  trivial  details, 
with  an  avoidance  of  direct  description,  that 
reminds  us  of  the  method  of  Jane  Austen. 
Harriet  never  achieved  any  other  portrait  of  a 
character  such  as  this  one;  for  this  is  treated 
with  such  minute  fidelity,  and  such  evident 
unconsciousness,  that  we  feel  sure,  as  we  some- 
times do  with  a  picture,  that  the  likeness  must 
be  an  exact  one.  So  distinct  an  individuality 
is  shown  to  us,  and  at  the  same  time,  the  evi- 
dences of  the  artist's  close  and  careful  observa- 
tion of  his  model  are  so  obvious,  that,  without 
having  seen  the  subject,  we/^/the  accuracy  of 
the  likeness.  So  does  the  "portrait  of  a 
mother  "  in  that  tale  which  Harriet  wrote  for 
her  last  words  through  the  press,  show  us  the 
nature  of  Mrs.  Martineau  in  her  maternal 
relation. 

"  Mrs.  Proctor  so  seldom  praised  anybody 
that  'her  words  of  esteem  went  a  great  way .  .  . 
Everyone  in  the  house  was  in  the  habit  of  hid- 
ing tearsxfrom  Mrs.  Proctor,  who  rarely  shed 
them  herself,  and  was  known  to  think  that 
they  might  generally  be  suppressed,  and  should 
be  so." 

If  any  person  were  weak  enough  to  express 


12  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

emotion  in  this  way  in  her  presence,  Mrs.  Proc- 
tor would  promptly  and  sternly  intimate  her 
disapproval  of  such  indulgence  of  the  feelings. 
When  the  little  lad  was  leaving  home  for  the 
first  time,  all  the  rest  of  the  household  became 
a  little  unhappy  o.ver  the  parting. 

"  Susan  came  in  about  the  cord  for  his  box, 
and  her  eyes  were  red, —  and  at  the  sight  of 
her  Agnes  began  to  cry  again  ;  and  Jane  bent 
down  over  the  glove  she  was  mending  for  him, 
and  her  needle  stopped. 

"  '  Jane,'  said  her  mother,  gravely,  '  if  you  are 
not  mending  that  glove,  give  it  to  me.  It  is 
getting  late.' 

"Jane  brushed  her  hand  across  her  eyes,  and 
stitched  away  again.  Then  she  threw  the 
gloves  to  Hugh  without  looking  at  him,  and  ran 
to  get  ready  to  go  to  the  coach." 

So  little  allowance  was  ordinarily  made  in 
that  house  for  signs  of  affection,  or  manifesta- 
tions of  personal  attachment,  that  the  child 
who  was  going  away  for  six  months  was 
"amazed  to  find  that  his  sisters  were  giving  up 
an  hour  of  their  lessons  that  they  might  go 
with  him  to  the  coach."  Even  when  Hugh  got 
his  foot  so  crushed  it  had  to  be  amputated, 
though  his  mother  came  to  him  and  gave  him 
every  proper  attention,  yet  "  Hugh  saw  no  tears 
from  her  "  ;  nothing  more  than  that  "  her  face 


AT  HOME  AND  AT  SCHOOL.  13 

was  very  pale  and  grave."  His  anticipations  of 
her  coming  had  not  been  warm  ;  his  one  anxiety 
had  been  that  he  might  bear  his  pain  resolutely 
before  her.  "  As  Hugh  cried,  he  said  he  bore 
it  so  very  badly  he  did  not  know  what  his 
mother  would  say  if  she  saw  him."  And  it 
was  well  that  he  had  not  anticipated  any  out- 
burst of  pity  or  expression  of  sympathy  from 
her,  for,  when  she  did  come,  "  she  kissed  him 
with  a  long,  long  kiss  ;  but  she  did  not  speak." 
Her  first  words  in  the  hearing  of  her  agonized 
child  were  spoken  to  give  him  an  intimation 
that  the  surgeons  were  waiting  to  take  off  his 
foot.  The  boy's  reply  was — not  to  cling  to  her 
for  support,  and  to  nestle  in  her  bosom  for  com- 
fort in  the  most  terrible  moment  of  his  young 
life,  but  —  "  Do  not  stay  now  ;  this  pain  is  so 
bad !  I  can't  bear  it  well  at  all.  Do  go,  now, 
and  bid  them  make  haste,  will  you  ? " 

Later,  when  the  leg  was  better,  the  poor 
boy's  mental  misery  once  overpowered  him, 
even  in  his  mother's  presence.  Sitting  with 
her  and  his  sister —  "...  He  said,  'He  did 
not  know  how  he  should  bear  his  misfortune. 
When  he  thought  of  the  long,  long  days,  and 
months,  and  years,  to  the  end  of  his  life,  and 
that  he  should  never  run  and  play,  and  never 
be  like  other  people,  and  never  able  to  do  the 
commonest  things  without  labor  and  trouble, 


14  HAKRIET  MARTINEAU. 

he  wished  he  was  dead.  He  would  rather  have 
died ! '  Agnes  thought  he  must  be  miserable 
indeed  if  he  would  venture  to  say  this  to  his 
mother."  Such  was  the  idea  that  these  chil- 
dren had  of  maternal  sympathy  and  love  !  So 
little  did  they  look  upon  their  mother  as  the 
one  person  above  all  others  to  whom  their 
secret  troubles  should  be  opened  ! 

It  is  proper  to  observe  that  the  mother  came 
out  of  this  test  well.  There  is  no  record  that 
Mrs.  Martineau  was  ever  found  wanting  in  due 
care  for  her  children  when  the  pent-up  agony 
of  their  bodies  or  spirits  became  so  violent  as 
to  burst  the  bonds  of  reserve  that  her  general 
demeanor  and  method  of  management  imposed 
upon  them.  Her  children's  misery  (for  Harriet 
was  not  the  only  one  of  the  family  whose  child- 
hood was  wretched)  came  not  from  any  inten- 
tional neglect,  or  even  from  any  indifference  on 
her  part  to  their  comfort  and  happiness,  but 
solely,  let  it  be  repeated,  from  her  arbitrary 
manner  and  her  quickness  of  temper.  It  is 
worth  repeating  (if  biography  be  of  value  for 
the  lessons  which  may  be  drawn  from  it  for  the 
conduct  of  other  lives)  that  the  mother  whose 
children  were  so  spirit-tossed  and  desolate  was, 
nevertheless,  one  who  gave  herself  up  to  their 
interests,  and  labored  incessantly  and  unself- 
ishly for  their  welfare.  It  was  not  love  that 


AT  HOME  AND  AT  SCHOOL.  15 

really  was  wanting ;  far  less  was  it  faithfulness 
in  the  performance  of  a  mother's  material  duties 
to  her  children ;  all  that  was  lacking  was  the 
free  play  of  the  emotions  on  the  surface,  the 
kisses,  the  loving  phrases,  the  fond  tones, 
which  are  assuredly  neither  weaknesses  nor 
works  of  supererogation  in  family  life.  By 
means  of  candid  expression  alone  can  the  emo- 
tions of  one  mind  touch  those  of  another;  and 
from  the  lack  of  such  contact  between  a  child 
and  its  mother  there  must  come,  in  so  close  a 
life  relationship,  misery  to  the  younger  and  dis- 
appointment to  the  elder  of  the  two. 

"I  really  think,"  says  Harriet,  "if  I  had  once 
conceived  that  anybody  cared  for  me,  nearly  all 
the  sins  and  sorrows  of  my  anxious  childhood 
would  have  been  spared  me."  Yet,  not  only 
was  she  well  fed,  well  clothed,  well  educated, 
and  sent  to  amusements  to  give  her  pleasure 
(magic  lanterns,  parties  and  seaside  trips  are  all 
mentioned) ;  but  besides  all  this,  when  she  did 
burst  forth,  like  Hugh  Proctor  in  the  book, 
with  the  expression  of  her  suffering,  she  was 
soothed  and  cared  for.  But  this  last  happened 
so  rarely  —  of  course  entirely  because  it  was 
made  so  difficult  for  her  to  express  herself — 
that  the  occasions  lived  in  her  memory  all  her 
life. 

The    moral   consequences    of    all   this   were 


1 6  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

naturally  bad.  Even  with  all  motherly  sympa- 
thy and  encouragement,  so  sickly  a  child  would 
have  been  likely  to  suffer  from  timidity,  and  to 
fall  into  occasional  fits  of  despondency  and 
irritability;  but,  with  fear  continually  excited 
in  her  mind,  and  with  an  eternal  storm  of 
passionate  opposition  to  arbitrary  authority 
raging  in  her  soul,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the 
poor  child  made  for  herself  a  character  for  will- 
fulness and  obstinacy,  while  internally  she  suf- 
fered dreadfully  from  her  conscience.  "In  my 
childhood,"  she  says,  "I  would  assert  or  deny 
anything  to  my  mother  that  would  bring  me 
through  most  easily.  .  .  .  This  was  so  ex- 
clusively to  one  person  that,  though  there  was 
remonstrance  and  punishment,  I  was  never 
regarded  as  a  liar  in  the  family."  •  Her  strength 
of  will  was  very  great ;  and  when  she  had  been 
placed  in  a  false  position  by  her  dread  of  re- 
buke, the  powerful  will  came  into  play  to  main- 
tain a  dogged,  stubborn,  indifferent  appearance. 
Yet  all  the  while  her  conscientiousness — the 
strong  convictions  as  to  what  was  right,  and  the 
ardent  desire  to  do  it,  which  marked  her  whole 
career — was  at  work  within  her,  causing  a 
mental  shame  and  distress  which  might  have 
been  easily  aided  by  gentle  treatment  to  over- 
come the  fear  and  the  firmness  which  were 
acting  together  to  make  her  miserable  and  a 
sinner. 


AT  HOME  AND  AT  SCHOOL.  I/ 

It  is  altogether  a  sad  story,  but  I  have  not 
told  it  at  length  without  reason.  The  fact  that 
other  children  are  suffering  similarly  every 
day  makes  the  record  worth  repeating.  But, 
besides  this,  her  vivid  remembrance  of  her 
childish  pangs  tends  to  show  how  warm  and 
strong  were  her  natural  affections.  If  Harriet 
Martineau's  mind  had  not  been  sensitive  and 
emotional,  and  if  her  love  for  those  united  to 
her  by  family  ties  had  not  been  ardent,  she 
would  not  have  felt  as  she  did  in  her  childhood, 
and  she  would  not  have  remembered,  all  through 
her  life,  how  she  had  suffered  in  her  early  years 
from  unsatisfied  affection.  Now,  this  soft, 
loving,  emotional  side  of  her  character  must  be 
recognized  before  her  life  and  her  work  can  be 
properly  appreciated. 

The  intellectual  influences  of  her  home  life 
were  not  more  happy  than  the  moral  ones. 
She  was  thought  by  her  family  anything  but  a 
clever  child.  Indeed,  Dr.  James  Martineau 
(whose  recollections  are  peculiarly  valuable, 
both  from  his  nearness  to  Harriet  in  age  and 
from  their  great  attachment  in  early  life)  still 
thinks  that  she  really  was  a  dull  child.  Her 
intelligence,  he  believes,  awoke  only  in  her 
later  youth,  coincidentally  with  some  improve- 
ment in  health.  It  is  hard  to  guess  what  the 
impression  of  her  childish  intellectual  powers 


1 8  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

might  have  been  under  different  conditions. 
She  suggestively  remarks*:  "  It  should  never 
be  forgotten  that  the  happier  a  child  is  the 
cleverer  he  will  be.  This  is  not  only  because 
in  a  state  of  happiness  the  mind  is  free,  and  at 
liberty  for  the  exercise  of  its  faculties  instead 
of  spending  its  thoughts  and  energy  in  brood- 
ing over  troubles,  but  also  because  the  action 
of  the  brain  is  stronger  when  the  frame  is  in  a 
state  of  hilarity ;  the  ideas  are  more  clear, 
impressions  of  outward  objects  are  more  vivid, 
and  the  memory  will  not  let  them  slip."  More- 
over, it  is  a  fact  worthy  of  note  that  the  recog- 
nition by  her  family  of  her  mental  development 
followed  upon  her  return  home  after  she  had 
been  away  for  a  time,  and  had  been  learning  at 
a  boarding-school  under  "the  first  person  of 
whom  she  never  felt  afraid."  Still,  the  fact 
remains  that  Harriet  was  the  ugly  duckling  of 
her  family,  and  supposed  to  be  the  most  stupid 
of  the  group  of  Martineau  children. 

She  was  active-minded  enough,  however,  to 
begin  early  that  spontaneous  self-education 
which  only  intellects  of  real  power  undertake, 
either  in  childhood  or  in  later  years. 

Milton  was  her  master.  When  she  was 
seven  years  old  she  came  by  accident  upon  a 
copy  of  Paradise  Lost  lying  open  upon  a  table. 

*  Household  Education,  p.  202. 


AT  HOME  AND  AT  SCHOOL.  19 

Taking  it  up,  she  saw  the  heading  "Argument," 
and  in  the  text  her  eye  caught  the  word 
"Satan."  Instantly  the  mind  which  her  rela- 
tions thought  so  sluggish  was  fired  by  the 
desire  to  know  how  Satan  could  be  argued 
about.  She  sought  the  passage  which  tells 
how  the  arch-fiend  was  — 

Hurled  headlong  flaming  from  the  ethereal  sky, 
With  hideous  ruin  and  combustion,  down 
To  bottomless  perdition,  there  to  dwell 
In  adamantine  chains  and  penal  fire. 

For  the  ensuing  seven  years  her  thoughts 
dwelt  daily  in  the  midst  of  the  solemn  scenes, 
and  moved  to  the  sound  of  the  sonorous  music 
of  Milton's  poetry.  "  I  wonder  how  much  of  it 
I  knew  by  heart — enough  to  be  always  repeat- 
ing it  to  myself  with  every  change  of  light  and 
darkness,  and  sound,  and  silence,  the  moods  of 
the  day  and  the  seasons  of  the  year."  The 
dull  child,  who  neglected  her  multiplication 
.  table,  did  so  because  her  mind  was  pre-occupied 
with  thoughts  of  this  grander  order. 

Her  love  of  books  increased,  and  her  range 
of  reading  became  wide.  Milton,  although  the 
favorite,  was  by  no  means  her  only  beloved 
author.  She  read  rapidly,  and,  as  clever  chil- 
dren often  do,  voraciously.  Whole  pages  or 
scenes  from  Shakespeare,  Goldsmith,  Thomp- 


20  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

son,  and  Milton  she  learned  by  heart,  until  she 
knew  enough  poetry  to  have  fitted  her  for  the 
occupation  of  a  wandering  reciter.  In  this  way 
her  self-education  in  the  English  classics,  and 
in  literary  style,  went  on  at  the  same  time  with 
her  daily  education  by  living  teachers. 

Harriet's  formal  education  was  somewhat 
desultory  ;  but  it  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  it 
was,  so  far  as  it  went,  what  would  have  been 
called  a  "boy's  education."  In  this  respect 
the  history  of  her  mental  development  is  the 
same  as  that  of  many  other  illustrious  women 
of  the  past.  Girls'  High  Schools,  and  Univer- 
sity examinations  for  young  women,  are  prod- 
ucts of  the  present  day,  and  are  rapidly  ren- 
dering obsolete  the  old  ideas  about  the  neces- 
sary differences  and  distinctions  between  the 
education  of  boys  and  girls.  But  up  to  the 
first  quarter  of  this  century,  the  minds  of  boys 
and  of  girls  were  commonly  submitted  to  entirely 
different  courses  of  training.  While  the  boys 
learned  precision  in  reasoning  from  mathematics, 
the  girls  were  considered  sufficiently  equipped 
for  their  lot  in  life  by  a  knowledge  of  the 
first  three  rules  of  arithmetic.  While  any  fac- 
ulty of  language  that  a  lad  possessed  was  trained 
and  exercised  by  the  study  of  the  classics,  his 
sister  was  thought  to  require  no  more  teaching 
in  composition  and  grammar  than  would  enable 


AT  HOME  AND  AT  SCHOOL.  21 

her  to  write  a  letter.  Elaborate  samplers,  spec- 
imens of  fine  stitching,  of  hemming  done  by  a 
thread  on  the  most  delicate  cambric,  of  marking 
in  tiny  stitches  and  wonderful  designs,  and  of 
lace  more  noticeable  for  difficulty  in  the  doing 
than  for  beauty,  have  come  down  to  us  from 
our  grandmothers'  days,  to  show  us  how  the 
school-time  of  the  girls  was  being  disposed  of, 
while  the  boys  were  studying  Euclid,  Virgil, 
and  Homer.  If  we  have  changed  all  that,  and 
are  now  beginning  to  give  a  considerable  pro- 
portion of  our  girls  the  same  mental  diet  for 
the  growth  and  sustenance  of  their  minds  witK 
that  which  is  supplied  to  boys,  it  is  largely 
owing  to  the  direct  efforts  in  favor  of  such  a 
course  put  forth  by  women  such  as  Harriet 
Martineau,  who  had  themselves  been,  at  least 
partially,  educated  "like  boys,"  and  were  con- 
scious that  to  such  education  they  owed  much 
of  their  mental  superiority  over  average  women. 
In  her  earlier  years  Harriet  was  taught  at 
home  by  her  elder  brothers  and  sisters,  with 
the  addition  of  lessons  in  some  subjects  from 
masters.  She  was  well  grounded  in  this  man- 
ner in  Latin,  French  and  the  ordinary  element- 
ary subjects.  But  her  systematic  education  did 
not  begin  until  she  was  eleven,  when  she  and 
her  sister  Rachel  were  sent  to  a  school  kept  by 
a  good  master,  at  which  boys  also  were  receiv- 
ing their  education. 


22  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

The  school-life  was  delectable  to  Harriet. 
Mr.  Perry,  the  master,  was  gentle  in  his  man- 
ner, and  methodical  in  his  style  of  teaching ; 
and  under  his  tuition  the  shy,  nervous  child  felt 
for  the  first  time  encouraged  to  do  her  best,  and 
aided  not  merely  to  learn  her  lessons,  but  also 
to  expand  her  mental  faculties.  The  two  years 
that  she  remained  at  Mr.  Perry's  school  gave 
her  a  fair  insight  into  Latin  and  French,  and 
enabled  her  to  discover  that  arithmetic  was  to 
her  mind  a  delightful  pastime  rather  than  a 
difficult  study.  English  composition  was  for- 
mally and  carefully  taught.  This  was  Harriet's 
favorite  lesson  ;  but  she  would  spend  her  play- 
time in  covering  a  slate  with  sums  for  the  mere 
pleasure  of  the  exercise 

When  Harriet  had  been  at  this  school  for 
about  two  years,  Mr.  Perry  left  Norwich.  The 
home  system  of  education  was  then  resumed. 
She  had  visiting  masters  in  Latin,  French,  and 
music.  For  the  rest,  Mrs.  Martineau  selected 
a  course  of  reading  on  history,  biography,  and 
literature.  One  of  the  girls  read  aloud  daily 
while  the  others  did  needle-work. 

"The  amount  of  time  we  spent  in  sewing  now 
appears  frightful ;  but  it  was  the  way  in  those 
days  among  people  like  ourselves."  Harriet  be- 
came a  thoroughly  accomplished  needle-woman. 
She  had,  indeed,  a  liking  for  the  occupation, 


AT  HOME  AND  AT  SCHOOL.  23 

and  continued  to  do  much  of  it  all  through 
her  life.  Many  of  her  friends  can  show  hand- 
some pieces  of  fancy-work  done  by  her  hands. 
Again  and  again  she  contributed  to  public 
objects  by  sending  a  piece  of  her  own  beautiful 
needle-work  to  be  sold  for  the  benefit  of  a 
society's  funds.  Not  even  in  the  busiest  time 
of  her  literary  life  did  she  ever  entirely  cease 
to  exercise  her  skill  in  this  feminine  occupa- 
tion. In  fact,  she  made  wool-work  her  artistic 
recreation. 

But  with  all  her  liking  for  needle-work,  and 
with  all  the  use  that  she  made  of  her  skill  in 
the  art,  she  did  feel  very  keenly  how  much  her 
time  and  strength  had  been  wasted  in  child- 
hood upon  the  practice  of  this  mechanical  occu- 
pation that  should  have  been  employed  in  the 
cultivation  of  her  mental  powers.  A  girl  then 
was  required  to  become  a  proficient  in  the 
making  of  every  kind  of  garment.  It  was  con- 
sidered a  good  test  of  her  capacity  to  know  at 
an  early  age  how  to  cut  out  and  put  together  a 
shirt  for  her  father;  drawing  threads  to  cut  it 
by,  and  drawing  threads  to  do  the  rows  of  fine 
stitching  by,  and  stitching  evenly  and  regularly, 
only  two  threads  of  the  finest  material  being 
taken  for  each  stitch  !  The  expenditure  of  time 
out  of  a  girl's  life,  involved  in  making  her  capa- 
ble of  doing  all  this,  was  something  shocking. 


24  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

In  these  days,  when  the  development  of  the 
means  of  communication  has  made  division  of 
labor  more  generally  practicable  than  of  old, 
and  when  nearly  all  men  and  women,  from  the 
richest  to  the  artizan  classes,  wear  garments 
made  chiefly  by  machinery,  I  doubt  if  many 
readers  can  be  got  to  realize  how  much  a  girl's 
intellectual  training  was  diminished  when  Har- 
riet Martineau  was  a  child  by  the  vast  amount 
of  time  consumed  in  training  her  as  a  seam- 
stress. Harriet  was  taught  how  to  make  all 
her  own  clothes,  even  to  covering  shoes  with 
silk  for  dancing,  and  to  plaiting  straw  bonnets. 
It  is  as  though  every  boy  were  taught  in  his 
school-life  to  be  a  thorough  carpenter,  so  as  to 
be  able,  in  youth,  to  turn  out,  unaided,  any  arti- 
cle of  furniture.  It  is  obvious  how  much  time 
such  technical  training  must  swallow  up.  To 
conceive  how  a  girl  was  held  back  by  it,  we 
must  ask  ourselves :  What  was  her  brother 
doing  while  she  was  learning  needle-work  ? 

The  matter  did  not  end  with  the  waste  of 
time  alone.  Health,  strength  and  nerve-force 
—  in  a  word,  power — was  squandered  upon  it 
to  a  degree  truly  lamentable.  Harriet  Marti- 
neau's  testimony*  upon  this  point  may  be 
taken,  because  of  her  real  fondness  for  the 
employment  and  the  skill  which  she  displayed 
in  it : 

*  Household  Education,  p.  286. 


AT  HOME  AND  AT  SCHOOL.  2$ 

"  I  believe  it  is  now  generally  agreed  among 
those  who  know  best  that  the  practice  of 
sewing  has  been  carried  much  too  far  for 
health,  even  in  houses  where  there  is  no  poverty 
or  pressure  of  any  kind.  No  one  can  well  be 
more  fond  of  sewing  than  I  am,  and  few,  except 
professional  seamstresses,  have  done  more  of 
it,  and  my  testimony  is  that  it  is  a  most  hurtful 
occupation,  except  where  great  moderation  is 
observed.  I  think  it  is  not  so  much  the  sitting 
and  stooping  posture  as  the  incessant  monoto- 
nous action  and  position  of  the  arms  that 
causes  such  wear  and  tear.  Whatever  it  may 
be,  there  is  something  in  prolonged  sewing 
which  is  remarkably  exhausting  to  the  strength, 
and  irritating  beyond  endurance  to  the  nerves. 
The  censorious  gossip,  during  sewing,  which 
was  the  bane  of  our  youth,"  she  adds,  "wasted 
more  of  our  precious  youthful  powers  and  dis- 
positions than  any  repentance  and  amendment 
in  after  life  could  repair." 

Harriet's  reading  for  pleasure  in  childhood 
had  mostly  to  be  done  by  snatches.  She 
learned  much  poetry  by  keeping  the  book 
under  her  work,  on  her  lap,  and  glancing  at  a 
line  now  and  another  then.  Shakespeare  she 
first  enjoyed,  while  a  child,  by  stealing  away 
from  table  in  the  evenings  of  one  winter,  and 
reading  by  the  light  of  the  drawing-room  fire, 
while  the  rest  lingered  over  dessert  in  the 
dining-room.  In  this  way,  too,  she  had  to  read 
the  newspaper. 


26  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

The  older  she  grew,  the  less  time  was  afforded 
her  from  domestic  duties  for  study.  She  was 
sent,  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  to  a  boarding- 
school  near  Bristol,  kept  by  an  aunt  of  her 
own,  where  she  stayed  fifteen  months,  and  on 
her  return  home  her  education  was  considered 
finished.  Thenceforth  it  was  a  struggle  to 
obtain  permission  to  spend  any  time  in  reading 
or  writing,  and  such  opportunities  as  she  got, 
or  could  make,  had  to  be  taken  advantage  of 
in  secresy. 

It  is  melancholy  to  read  of  her  "spending  a 
frightful  amount  of  time  in  sewing,"  and  being 
"  expected  always  to  sit  down  in  the  parlor  to 
sew,"  instead  of  studying;  of  her  being  "at 
the  work-table  regularly  after  breakfast,  making 
my  own  clothes  or  the  shirts  of  the  household, 
or  about  some  fancy  work,  or  if  ever  I  shut 
myself  into  my  own  room  for  an  hour  of  soli- 
tude, I  knew  it  was  at  the  risk  of  being  sent 
for  to  join  the  sewing-circle;"  and  of  the 
necessity  that  she  lay  under  to  find  time  for 
study  by  stealing  secret  hours  from  sleep.  But 
it  is  needful  to  lay  stress  upon  these  hindrances 
through  which  the  growing  girl  fought  her 
way  to  mental  development.  Wide  though  her 
knowledge  was,  great  though  her  mental  powers 
became,  who  can  tell  how  much  was  taken  from 
her  possibilities  (as  from  those  of  all  other 


AT  HOME  AND  AT  SCHOOL.  2? 

great  women  of  the  past)  by  such  waste  of  her 
powers  in  childhood  and  youth  ? 

It  is  distressing  to  think  about.  The  only 
comfort  is  that  it  was  inevitable.  Of  all  the 
causes  that  unite  to  make  the  women  of  the 
present  more  favorably  circumstanced  than 
those  of  the  past,  none  is  more  potent  than 
the  progress  of  mechanical  discovery  having 
relieved  them  from  the  necessity  of  making  all 
the  clothing  of  mankind  with  their  own  hands. 
From  the  era  when  Errina,  the  Greek  poetess, 
mournfully  lamented  that  her  mother  tied 
her  to  her  distaff,  down  to  the  days  in  which 
Harriet  Martineau  studied  by  snatches,  and 
spent  her  days  in  making  shirts  in  the  parlor, 
an  enormous  amount  of  feminine  power  has 
been  squandered  wastefully  in  this  direction.  If 
women  hereafter  draw  out  a  Comtist  calendar 
of  days  upon  which  to  reverence  the  memory 
of  those  who  have  helped  them  on  in  the  scale 
of  beings,  assuredly  they  must  find  places  for 
the  inventors  of  the  spinning-mule,  the  stock- 
ing-loom and  the  sewing-machine. 

Religion  formed  the  chief  source  of  happi- 
ness to  Harriet  Martineau  in  childhood  and 
early  youth.  Her  parents  were  Unitarians,  and 
their  child's  theology  was,  therefore,  of  a  mild 
type,  lacking  a  hell,  a  personal  devil,  a  theory 
of  original  sin,  and  the  like.  She  did  not  fear 


28  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

God,  while  she  feared  almost  all  human  beings, 
and  her  devotion  was  thus  a  source  of  great  joy 
and  little  misery. 

When  she  was  at  the  Bristol  boarding-school, 
she  came  under  the  ministerial  influence  of  the 
great  Unitarian  preacher,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Car- 
penter. The  power  of  his  teaching  increased 
the  ardor  of  her  religious  sentiments.  She  was 
just  at  an  intense  age  —  between  fourteen  and 
sixteen.  Dr.  Carpenter's  religious  instructions 
made  the  theism  in  which  she  had  been  edu- 
cated become  a  firm  personal  conviction,  and 
caused  the  natural  action  of  '  a  sensitive  con- 
science, the  self-devotion  and  humility  of  a 
deep  power  of  veneration,  and  the  truthfulness 
and  sincerity  of  a  rare  courage,  to  be  blended 
indistinguishably  in  their  exercise  with  emo- 
tional outpourings  of  the  spirit  in  worship,  and 
with  attachment  to  certain  theological  tenets. 

Her  younger  sister  well  remembers  that 
Harriet's  fervent  and  somewhat  gloomy  piety 
was  the  cause  of  a  good  deal  of  quizzing 
amongst  her  elders,  when  she  returned  home 
from  Bristol ;  their  amusement  being  mixed, 
however,  with  much  respect  for  her  sincerity 
and  conscientiousness.  But,  as  her  mind 
expanded,  she  thought  as  well  as  felt  about  her 
theology,  and  her  religious  development  did  not 
end  with  childhood. 


CHAPTER  II. 

EARLY  WOMANHOOD  :     DEVELOPING  INFLUENCES. 

OLD  Norwich,  in  the  early  years  of  this  century, 
was  a  somewhat  exceptional  place.  It  so 
chanced  that  besides  the  exclusiveness  natural 
even  now  to  the  society  of  a  cathedral  town  — 
besides  the  insular  tone  of  thought  and  man- 
ners which  most  towns  possessed  in  those  pre- 
railway  days,  and  while  our  continental  wars 
were  holding  our  country-people  isolated  from 
foreign  nations  —  besides  all  this,  Norwich  then 
prided  herself  upon  having  produced  a  good  deal 
of  literary  ability.  Her  William  Taylor  was 
considered  to  be  almost  the  only  German  scholar 
in  England,  and  other  men,  whose  names  are 
now  nearly  forgotten,  but  who  in  their  day  were 
looked  up  to  as  lights  of  learning  and  litera- 
ture—  Sayers,  Smith,  Enfield,  Aklerson,  and 
others,  — gave  a  tone  to  the  society  of  Norwich, 
which,  if  somewhat  pedantic,  was,  nevertheless, 
favorable  to  the  intellectual  life.  It  is  no  small 
testimony  to  the  healthy  and  stimulating  men- 
tal atmosphere  of  old  Norwich  that  there  sue- 


30  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

cessively  came  out  from  her,  in  an  age  when 
individuality  and  intellect  in  woman  were  stead- 
ily repressed,  three  women  of  such  mark  as 
Amelia  Opie,  Elizabeth  Fry  and  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau. 

But  even  in  Norwich  the  repression  just 
alluded  to  was  felt  by  women.  Even  there  it 
was  held,  to  say  the  least,  peculiar  and  unde- 
sirable for  a  girl  to  wish  to  study  deep  subjects. 
"When  I  was  young,"  Miss  Martineau  writes, 
"it  was  not  thought  proper  for  young  ladies  to 
study  very  conspicuously;  and  especially  with 
pen  in  hand."  They  were  required  to  be  always 
ready  "to  receive  callers,  without  any  sign  of 
blue-stockingism  which  could  be  reported  abroad. 
My  first  studies  in  philosophy  were  carried  on 
with  great  care  and  reserve.  ...  I  won  time 
for  what  my  heart  was  set  upon  either  in  the 
early  morning  or  late  at  night." 

It  was  thus  at  unseasonable  hours,  and  with- 
out the  encouraging  support  of  that  public 
feeling  of  the  value  and  desirability  of  knowl- 
edge, and  the  honorableness  of  its  acquisition, 
by  which  a  young  man's  studies  are  uncon- 
sciously aided,  that  Harriet  in  her  young  woman- 
hood continued  to  learn.  She  read  Latin  with 
her  brother  James,  and  translated  from  the 
classics  by  herself.  Her  cousin,  Mr.  Lee,  read 
Italian  with  her  and  her  sister ;  and  in  course 


EARLY  WOMANHOOD.  31 

of  time  they  undertook  the  translation  of 
Petrarch's  sonnets  into  English  verse.  She  read 
Blair's  Rhetoric  repeatedly.  Her  Biblical  stud- 
ies were  continued  until  she  was  in  that  position 
which,  according  to  Macaulay,  is  necessary  "  for 
a  critic  of  the  niceties  of  the  English  language  ;  " 
she  had  "the  Bible  at  her  fingers'  ends." 

But  her  solitary  studies  went  also  into  heavier 
and  less  frequented  paths..  Dr.  Carpenter  had 
taught  her  to  interest  herself  in  mental  and 
moral  philosophy.  She  read  about  these  sub- 
jects at  first  because  he  had  written  upon  them, 
and  afterwards  because  she  found  them  really 
congenial  to  her  mind.  Locke  and  Hartley 
were  the  authors  whom  she  studied  most  closely. 
Then  the  works  of  Priestley,  and  the  study  of  his 
life  and  opinions  —  which  she  naturally  under- 
took, because  Dr.  Priestley  was  the  great  apos- 
tle and  martyr  of  Unitarianism  — led  her  to 
make  a  very  full  acquaintance  with  the  meta- 
physicians of  the  Scotch  school. 

To  how  much  purpose  she  thus  read  the  best 
books  then  available,  upon  some  of  the  highest 
topics  that  can  engage  the  attention,  soon 
became  apparent  when  she  began  to  write ;  but 
of  this  I  must  speak  in  due  course  later  on. 
Two  other  of  the  most  important  events,  or 
rather  trains  of  events,  in  the  history  of  her 
young  womanhood,  must  be  mentioned  first. 


32  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

The  earlier  of  these  was  the  gradual  on- 
coming and  increase  of  her  deafness.  She 
began  to  be  slightly  deaf  while  she  was  at  Mr. 
Perry's  school,  and  the  fact  was  there  recognized 
so  far  as  to  cause  her  to  be  placed  next  to  her 
teacher  in  the  class.  How  keenly  she  even  then 
felt  this  loss,  she  has  in  part  revealed  in  the 
story  of  Hugh  Procter  ;  and  a  few  lines  from  an 
essay  of  hers  on  Scott  may  here  be  added  : 

"Few  have  any  idea  of  the  all-powerful  influ- 
ence which  the  sense  of  personal  infirmity 
exerts  over  the  mind  of  a  child.  If  it  were 
known,  its  apparent  disproportionateness  to 
other  influences  would,  to  the  careless  observer, 
appear  absurd ;  to  the  thoughtful  it  would  afford 
new  lights  respecting  the  conduct  of  educa- 
tional discipline  ;  it  would  also  pierce  the  heart 
of  many  a  parent  who  now  believes  that  he 
knows  all,  and  who  feels  so  tender  a  regret  for 
what  he  knows  that  even  the  sufferer  wonders 
at  its  extent.  But  this  is  a  species  of  suffering 
which  can  never  obtain  sufficient  sympathy, 
because  the  sufferer  himself  is  not  aware,  till  he 
has  made  comparison  of  this  with  other  pains, 
how  light  all  others  are  in  comparison." 

As  pathetically,  but  more  briefly,  she  says 
about  herself  : —  "  My  deafness,  when  new,  was 
the  uppermost  thing  in  my  mind  day  and 
night." 


EARLY  WOMANHOOD.  33 

Her  inability  to  hear  continued  to  increase 
by  slow  degrees  during  the  next  six  years  ;  and 
when  she  was  eighteen  "a  sort  of  accident" 
suddenly  increased  it.  Music  had,  until  then, 
been  one  of  her  great  delights,  and  it  shows 
how  gradual  was  the  progress  of  her  deafness, 
that  she  found  herself  able  to  hear  at  an  orches- 
tral concert,  provided  she  could  get  a  seat  with 
a  back  against  which  she  could  press  her 
shoulder-blades,  for  a  long  time  after  the  music 
had  become  inaudible  without  this  assistance. 
Such  a  gradual  deprivation  of  a  most  important 
sense  is  surely  far  more  trying  than  a  quick, 
unexpected,  and  obviously  irremediable  loss 
would  be.  The  alternations  of  hope  and  de- 
spair, the  difficulty  of  inducing  the  sufferer's 
friends  to  recognize  how  serious  the  case  is, 
the  perhaps  yet  greater  difficulty  to  the  patient 
to  resolutely  step  out  of  the  ranks  of  ordinary 
people  and  take  up  the  position  of  one  deficient 
in  a  sense,  the  mortifications  which  have  to 
be  endured  again  and  again  both  from  the  igno- 
rance of  strangers  and  the  mistaken  sympathy 
of  friends — all  these  make  up  the  special  trial 
of  one  who  becomes  by  degrees  the  subject  of 
a  chronic  affection.  No  sensitive  person  can 
possibly  pass  through  this  fiery  trial  unchanged. 
Such  an  experience  must  either  refine  or 
harden  ;  must  either  strengthen  the  powers  of 


34  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

endurance  or  break  down  the  mind  to  querulous 
ill-temper ;  must  either  make  self  the  centre  of 
creation  or  greatly  add  to  the  power  of  putting 
personal  interests  aside  for  the  sake  of  wider 
and  more  unselfish  thoughts  and  feelings. 
Which  class  of  influences  Harriet  Martineau 
accepted  from  her  trial  the  history  of  her  cour- 
ageous, resolute  life-work,  and  her  devotion  to 
truth  and  duty  as  she  saw  them,  will  sufficiently 
show. 

How  much  she  suffered  in  mind  was  quite 
unknown  to  her  family  at  the  time.  She  was 
always  reserved  in  speaking  about  her  own 
feelings  and  emotions  to  her  mother,  and  in 
this  particular  case  Mrs.  Martineau,  with  the 
kindest  intentions,  discouraged,  as  far  as  possi- 
ble, all  recognition  of  the  growing  infirmity. 
The  society  of  Norwich  had  never  been  very 
attractive  to  the  young  girl,  who  was  above  the 
average  in  natural  abilities,  and  still  further 
removed  from  the  petty  and  frivolous  gossip  of 
the  commonplace  evening  party,  by  the  exten- 
sive and  elevating  course  of  study  through 
which  her  mind  had  passed.  Had  she  been 
well  able  to  hear,  she  could  have  quietly  ac- 
cepted what  such  intercourse  could  give  her. 
This  would  have  been  much.  Kindliness  and 
good  feeling,  common  sense,  and  ideas  about 
man  and  his  circumstances,  are  to  be  enjoyed 


EARLY  WOMANHOOD.  35 

and  gained  quite  as  much  in  ordinary  as  in  what 
is  commonly  called  intellectual  society.  But 
in  the  freshness  of  her  sensitive  suffering  Har- 
riet shrank  from  the  Norwich  evening  parties. 
Her  mother,  however,  insisted  upon  her  taking 
her  full  share  of  visiting. 

The  case  was  made  worse  by  the  customary 
errors  in  the  treatment  of  deaf  persons ;  namely, 
the  endeavoring  to  keep  up  the  illusion  that 
she  was  not  deaf,  the  occasional  assurances  that 
she  could  hear  as  well  as  ever  if  it  were  not 
for  her  habits  of  abstraction,  and  so  forth,  and 
the  imploring  her  to  always  ask  when  she  did 
not  hear  what  was  said,  followed  by  scoldings 
(kindly  meant,  but  none  the  less  irritating  to 
the  object)  when  it  was  found  that  she  had 
been  silently  losing  the  larger  part  of  a  conver- 
sation. False  pride,  pretence,  and  selfish  exac- 
tions were  thus  sought  to  be  nourished  in  her ; 
while  the  blessings  of  an  open  recognition  of 
her  trouble,  and  a  full  and  free  sympathy  with 
her  pain  and  her  difficulty  in  learning  to  bear 
it,  were  at  the  same  time  withheld. 

I  have  spoken  of  this  method  of  treatment 
of  such  a  case  as  erroneous.  But  in  such  a 
matter  only  those  who  have  gone  through  the 
experience  and  have  come  out  of  it  at  last,  as 
she  did,  with  the  moral  nature  strengthened, 
and  the  power  of  self-management  increased, 


36  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

can  be  really  competent  to  express  an  opinion 
upon  the  proper  method  of  behavior  to  similar 
sufferers.  I  hasten  to  add,  therefore,  that  in 
substance  the  view  that  I  have  given  is  that 
expressed  in  Harriet  Martineau's  Letter  to  the 
Deaf,  published  in  1834.  In  that  remarkable 
fragment  of  autobiography  she  appealed  to 
the  large  number  of  people  who  suffered  like 
herself,  to  insist  upon  the  frank  recognition  of 
their  infirmity,  and  to  themselves  acquiesce 
with  patience  in  all  the  deprivations  and  morti- 
fications which  the  loss  of  a  sense  must  bring. 
The  revelation  in  this  essay  of  her  own  suffer- 
ings is  most  touching ;  and  very  noble  and 
beautiful  is  the  way  in  which  she  urges  that  the 
misery  must  be  met,  and  the  humiliation  must 
be  turned  aside,  by  no  other  means  than  cour- 
age, candor,  patience,  and  an  unselfish  deter- 
mination to  consider  first  the  convenience  and 
happiness  of  others  instead  of  the  sufferer's 
own. 

"Instead  of  putting  the  singularity  out  of 
sight  we  should  acknowledge  it  in  words,  pre- 
pare for  it  in  habits,  and  act  upon  it  in  social 
intercourse.  Thus  only  can  we  save  others 
from  being  uneasy  in  our  presence,  and  sad 
when  they  think  of  us.  That  we  can  thus  alone 
make  ourselves  sought  and  beloved  is  an  infe- 
rior consideration,  though  an  important  one  to 
us,  to  whom  warmth  and  kindness  are  as  pecu- 


EARLY  WOMANHOOD.  37 

liarly  animating  as  sunshine  to  the  caged  bird. 
This  frankness,  simplicity,  and  cheerfulness 
can  only  grow  out  of  a  perfect  acquiescence  in 
our  circumstances.  Submission  is  not  enough. 
Pride  fails  at  the  most  critical  moment.  But 
hearty  acquiescence  cannot  fail  to  bring  forth 
cheerfulness.  The  thrill  of  delight  which 
arises  during  the  ready  agreement  to  profit  by 
pain  (emphatically  the  joy  with  which  no 
stranger  intermeddleth)  must  subside  like  all 
other  emotions  ;  but  it  does  not  depart  without 
leaving  the  spirit  lightened  and  cheered ;  and 
every  visitation  leaves  it  in  a  more  genial  state 
than  the  last.  ...  I  had  infinitely  rather  bear 
the  perpetual  sense  of*  privation  than  become 
unaware  of  anything  which  is  true  —  of  my 
intellectual  deficiences,  of  my  disqualifications 
for  society,  of  my  errors  in  matter  of  fact,  and 
of  the  burdens  that  I  necessarily  impose  on 
those  who  surround  me.  We  can  never  get 
beyond  the  necessity  of  keeping  in  full  view 
the  worst  and  the  best  that  can  be  made  of  our 
lot.  The  worst  is  either  to  sink  under  the  trial 
or  to  be  made  callous  by  it.  The  best  is  to  be 
as  wise  as  possible  under  a  great  disability,  and 
as  happy  as  possible  under  a  great  privation." 

It  is  essential,  for  a  correct  understanding  of 
her  character,  that  this  great  trial  of  her  youth 
should  be  presented  amidst  the  moulding  influ- 
ences of  that  time  with  as  much  strength  as  it 
was  experienced.  But  it  is  difficult,  within  the 
necessary  limits  of  quotation,  to  convey  an  idea 


38  HAKRIET  MARTINEAU. 

to  the  reader  of  either  the  intensity  and  bitter- 
ness of  the  suffering  revealed,  or  of  the  firm- 
ness and  beauty  of  the  spirit  with  which  the 
trial  was  met.  Nor  was  the  advice  that  she 
gave  to  others  mere  talk,  which  she  herself 
never  put  in  practice.  If  her  family  did  not 
realize  at  the  time  how  deeply  she  suffered,  still 
less  could  her  friends  in  later  life  discover  by 
anything  in  her  manners  that  her  soul  had  been 
so  searched  and  her  spirits  so  tried.  So  frankly 
and  candidly,  and  with  such  an  utter  absence  of 
affectation,  did  she  accept  this  condition  of  her 
life,  that  those  around  her  hardly  realized  that 
she  felt  it  as  a  deprivation ;  and  a  few  lines 
in  her  autobiography,  in  which  she  mentions 
how  conscious  she  was  of  intellectual  fatigue 
from  the  lack  of  those  distractions  to  the  mind 
which  enter  continually  through  the  normal  ear, 
came  like  a  painful  shock  to  her  friends,  mak- 
ing them  feel  that  they  had  been  unconscious 
of  a  need  ever  present  with  her  throughout  life. 
For  some  time  after  the  deafness  began,  she 
did  not  use  an  ear-trumpet.  Like  many  in  a 
similar  position,  she  persuaded  herself  that  her 
deafness  was  not  sufficiently  great  to  cause  any 
considerable  inconvenience  to  others  in  conver- 
sation. At  length,  however,  she  was  enlight- 
ened upon  this  point.  An  account  appeared  in 
a  Unitarian  paper  of  two  remarkable  cures  of 


EARLY  WOMANHOOD.  39 

deafness  by  galvanism,  and  Harriet's  friends 
persuaded  her  to  try  this  new  remedy.  For  a 
brief  while,  hope  was  revived  in  her  ;  the  treat- 
ment threw  her  into  a  state  of  nervous  fever, 
during  which  she  regained  considerable  sensi- 
bility in  the  organ  of  hearing.  The  improve- 
ment was  very  temporary,  but  it  lasted  suffi- 
ciently long  to  let  her  know  how  much  her 
friends  had  been  straining  their  throats  for  her 
sake.  From  that  time  she  invariably  carried 
and  used  an  ear-trumpet,  commencing  with  an 
india-rubber  tube,  with  a  cup  at  the  end  for 
the  speaker  to  take  into  his  hand,  but  after- 
wards employing  an  ordinary  stiff  trumpet. 

Into  this  existence,  which  had  hitherto  been 
so  full  of  sadness,  there  came  at  length  the 
bright-tinted  and  vivid  shower  of  light,  which 
means  so  much  to  a  woman.  Love  came  to 
brighten  the  life  so  dark  hitherto  for  lack  of  that 
sunshine.  Much  as  it  is  to  any  woman  to  know 
herself  beloved  by  the  man  whom  she  loves,  to 
Harriet  Martineau  it  was  even  more  than  to 
most.  It  was  not  only  that  her  character  was 
a  strong  one,  and  that  to  such  a  nature  all  influ- 
ences that  are  accepted  become  powerful  forces, 
but  besides  this  she  had  always  loved  more  than 
she  had  been  loved ;  and  her  self-esteem  had 
been  systematically  suppressed  by  her  mother's 
stern  discipline,  and  afterwards  injured  by  the 


40  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

mortifications  to  which  the  on-coming  of  her 
deafness  gave  rise.  How  much,  in  such  a  case, 
it  must  have  been,  when  the  hour  at  last  came 
for  the  history  of  the  heart  to  be  written  !  How 
delightful  the  time  when  she  could  cherish  in 
her  thoughts  a  love  which  was  at  once  an  equal 
friendship  and  a  vivid  passion  !  How  great  the 
revolution  in  her  mind  when  she  found  that  the 
man  whom  she  could  love  would  choose  her 
from  all  the  world  of  women  to  be  his  dearest, 
the  partner  of  his  life  ! 

It  would  be  a  proof,  if  proof  were  needed  at 
this  time  of  day,  that  it  is  well-nigh  impossible 
for  any  person  to  give  a  candid,  full  and  uner- 
ring record  of  his  own  past,  and  the  circum- 
stances in  it  which  have  most  influenced  his 
development,  to  turn  from  the  brief  and  cursory 
record  which  Harriet  Martineau's  autobiography 
gives  of  this  attachment,  to  the  complete  story 
as  I  have  it  to  tell,  her^and  in  a  future  chapter. 

The  strongest  of  all  the  family  affections  of 
her  childhood  and  youth  was  that  which  she 
felt  for  her  brother  James.  He  was  two  years 
younger  than  herself.  They  had  been  play- 
mates in  childhood,  and  companions  in  study 
later  on.  Harriet's  first  attraction  to  Mr. 
Worthington  was  that  he  was  her  brother's 
friend.  The  two  young  men  were  fellow- 
students  at  college,  preparing  for  the  Unitarian 


EARLY  WOMANHOOD.  41 

ministry.  Worthington  was  already  well  known 
to  Harriet  from  her  brother's  letters  before 
she  saw  him.  He  then  went  on  a  visit  to 
Norwich,  to  spend  a  part  of  the  vacation  with 
James,  and  the  interest  which  the  friend  and 
the  sister  already  felt  in  each  other,  from  their 
mutual  affection  for  the  brother,  soon  ripened 
into  love.  This  was,  I  believe,  in  1822,  when 
she  was  twenty  years  old. 

Her  father  and  mother  looked  not  unkindly 
upon  the  dawning  of  this  affection.  The 
brother,  however,  who  knew  the  two  so  well, 
felt  quite  certain  that  they  were  not  suited  for 
each  other.  Harriet  was  of  a  strong,  decided 
temper,  even  somewhat  arbitrary  and  hasty, 
quick  in  her  judgments,  and  firm  in  her 
opinions.  The  temperament  of  Worthington, 
on  the  other  hand,  was,  I  am  told,  gentle,  im- 
pressionable and  sensitive  in  the  extreme.  He 
was  highly  conscientious,  and  ultra-tender  in 
his  treatment  of  the  characters  and  opinions 
of  others.  The  two  seemed  in  many  respects 
the  antipodes  of  each  other.  He  who  knew 
them  both  best  was  convinced  that  they  would 
not  be  happy  together,  and  that  opinion  he  has 
never  changed. 

It  is  above  all  things  difficult  to  predict 
beforehand  whether  two  apparently  antago- 
nistic characters  will  really  clash  and  jar  in  the 


42  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

close  union  of  married  life,  or  whether,  on 
the  contrary,  the  deficiencies  of  the  one  will 
be  supplemented  by  those  opposite  tendencies 
which  are  rather  in  excess  in  the  other.  It  is 
notorious  that  marriages  are  seldom  perfect 
matches  in  the  view  of  outsiders ;  the  incon- 
gruities in  the  temperaments  and  the  habits  of 
life  and  thought,  are  more  easily  discerned  than 
the  fusing  influence  of  ardent  love  can  be 
measured.  Nor,  indeed,  can  the  changes  which 
will  be  worked  in  the  disposition  by  a  surrender 
to  the  free  play  of  emotion  be  accurately  fore- 
seen. Considerations  such  as  these,  however, 
do  not  have  much  weight  in  the  mind  of  a 
young  man  whose  experience  of  the  mysteries 
of  the  human  heart  is  yet  to  come ;  and  James 
Martineau  was  strongly  averse  to  the  engage- 
ment of  his  sister  and  his  friend.  Their 
attachment  was  not  then  permitted  to  become 
an  engagement.  Worthington  was  poor — was 
still  only  a  student  —  Harriet  was  supposed,  at 
that  time,  to  be  well  portioned ;  the  sensitive 
temperament  of  the  young  lover  felt  the  variety 
of  discouragements  placed  in  the  path  of  his 
affection,  and  so  that  affection  which  should 
have  brought  only  joy  became,  in  fact,  to 
Harriet  the  cause  of  sorrow,  suspense  and 
anxiety.  Yet  its  vivifying  influence  was  felt, 
and  the  true  happiness  which  is  inseparable 


EARLY  WOMANHOOD.  43 

from  mutual  love,  however  the  emotion  be 
checked  and  denied  its  full  expression,  was  not 
lacking.  For  some  insight  into  what  Harriet 
Martineau  knew  and  felt  of  love,  we  must  look 
elsewhere  than  in  the  formal  record  of  •  the 
Autobiography.*  But  this,  like  all  the  other 
chief  events  of  her  life,  has  found  a  place  in 
her  works  under  a  thin  veiling  of  her  person- 
ality. Let  us  see  from  one  of  her  early  essays 
how  Harriet  Martineau  learned  to  regard  love. 
The  essay  is  called  "In  a  Hermit's  Cave." 

"  The  place  was  not  ill-chosen  by  the  holy  man, 
if  the  circumstances  could  but  have  been  adapted 
to  that  highest  worship — the  service  of  the  life. 
.  .  .  But  there  is  yet  wanting  the  altar  of  the 
human  heart,  on  which  alone  a  fire  is  kindled 
from  above  to  shine  in  the  faces  of  all  true  wor- 

*  Mr.  H.  G.  Atkinson  writes  to  me :  "  She  had  written 
much  more  at  length  (than  is  published)  in  her  Autobiography 
about  her  courtship;  but  she  consulted  me  about  publishing 
it,  and  I  advised  her  not  to  do  so  —  the  matter  counted  for 
so  little  in  such  a  life  as  hers."  The  quotation  which  I  give 
here  shows  for  what  it  did  really  count  in  the  history  of  her 
mental  development.  But  so  difficult  must  it  needs  be  for 
the  writer  of  an  autobiography  to  speak  frankly  of  the  more 
sacred  experiences  of  the  life,  that  it  is  not  surprising  that 
Harriet  Martineau  "  destroyed  what  she  had  written,"  when 
so  advised  by  the  friend  whom  she  consulted.  I  need  only 
add  that  the  many  new  details  about  the  facts  of  this  matter, 
which  I  am  able  to  give,  I  have  received  from  two  of  her 
own  generation,  both  of  whom  were  very  intimate  friends  of 
hers  at  the  time  when  all  this  occurred. 


44  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

shippers  for  ever.  Where  this  flame,  the  glow 
of  human  love,  is  burning,  there  is  the  temple 
of  worship,  be  it  only  beside  the  humblest  vil- 
lage hearth  :  where  it  has  not  been  kindled  there 
is  no  sanctuary ;  and  the  loftiest  amphitheatre 
of  mountains,  lighted  up  by  the  ever-burning 
stars,  is  no  more  the  dwelling-place  of  Jehovah 
than  the  Temple  of  Solomon  before  it  was  filled 
with  the  glory  of  the  Presence.  .  .  . 

Yes,  Love  is  worship,  authorized  and  approved. 
.  .  .  Many  are  the  gradations  through  which 
this  service  rises  until  it  has  reached  that  on 
which  God  has  bestowed  His  most  manifest 
benediction,  on  which  Jesus  smiled  at  Cana, 
but  which  the  devotee  presumed  to  decline. 
Not  more  express  were  the  ordinances  of  Sinai 
than  the  Divine  provisions  for  wedded  love ; 
never  was  it  more  certain  that  Jehovah  benig- 
nantly  regarded  the  festivals  of  His  people  than 
it  is  daily  that  He  has  appointed  those  mutual 
rejoicings  of  the  affections,  which  need  but  to 
be  referred  to  Him  to  become  a  holy  homage. 
Yet  there  have  been  many  who  pronounce  com- 
mon that  which  God  has  purified,  and  reject  or 
disdain  that  which  He  has  proffered  and  blest 
How  ignorant  must  such  be  of  the  growth  of 
that  within  !  How  unobservant  of  what  passes 
without !  Would  that  all  could  know  how  from 
the  first  flow  of  the  affections,  until  they  are 
shed  abroad  in  their  plentitude,  the  purposes  of 
creation  become  fulfilled.  Would  that  all  could 
know  how,  by  this  mighty  impulse,  new  strength 
is  given  to  every  power ;  how  the  intellect  is 
vivified  and  enlarged ;  how  the  spirit  becomes 


EARLY  WOMANHOOD.  45 

bold  to  explore  the  path  of  life,  and  clear-sighted 
to  discern  its  issues.  ....  For  that  piety  which 
has  humanity  for  its  object  —  must  not  that 
heart  feel  most  of  which  tenderness  has  become 
the  element  ?  Must  not  the  spirit  which  is  most 
exercised  in  hope  and  fear  be  most  familiar  with 
hope  and  fear  wherever  found  ? 

How  distinctly  I  saw  all  this  in  those  who  are 
now  sanctifying  their  first  Sabbath  of  wedded 
love.  .  .  .  The  one  was  at  peace  with  all  that 
world  which  had  appeared  so  long  at  war  with 
him.  He  feared  nothing,  he  possessed  all ;  and 
of  the  overflowings  of  his  love  he  could  spare  to 
every  living  thing.  The  other  thought  of  no 
world  but  the  bright  one  above,  and  the  quiet 
one  before  her,  in  each  of  which  dwelt  one  in 
whom  she  had  perfect  trust.  .  .  .  In  her  the  pro- 
gression has  been  so  regular,  and  the  work  so 
perfect,  that  any  return  to  the  former  per- 
turbations of  her  spirit  seems  impossible.  She 
entered  upon  a  new  life  when  her  love  began  ; 
and  it  is  as  easy  to  conceive  that  there  is  one 
Life  Giver  to  the  body,  and  another  to  the  spirit, 
as  that  this  progression  is  not  the  highest  work 
of  God  on  earth,  and  its  results  abounding  to 
His  praise.  .  .  .  To  those  who  know  them  as  I 
know  them,  they  appear  already  possessed  of  an 
experience  in  comparison  with  which  it  would 
appear  little  to  have  looked  abroad  from  the 
Andes,  or  explored  the  treasure-caves  of  the 
deep,  or  to  have  conversed  with  every  nation 
under  the  sun.  If  they  could  see  all  that  the 
eyes  of  the  firmament  look  upon,  and  hear  all 
the  whispered  secrets  that  the  roving  winds  bear 


46  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

in  their  bosoms,  they  could  learn  but  little  new  ; 
for  the  deepest  mysteries  are  those  of  human 
love,  and  the  vastest  knowledge  is  that  of  the 
human  heart." 

Even  more  vividly,  at  a  later  period,  she  told 
something  of  her  experiences  in  one  of  her 
fictions,  under  the  guise  of  a  conversation 
between  a  young  husband  and  wife : — 

"  Do  you  really  think  there  are  any  people 
that  have  passed  through  life  without  knowing 
what  that  moment  was,  that  stir  in  one's  heart 
on  being  first  sure  that  one  is  beloved?  It  is 
most  like  the  soul  getting  free  of  the  body  and 
rushing  into  Paradise,  I  should  think.  Do  you 
suppose  anybody  ever  lived  a  life  without  hav- 
ing felt  this  ?  " 

Walter  feared  it  might  be  so ;  but,  if  so,  a 
man  missed  the  moment  that  made  a  man  of 
one  that  was  but  an  unthinking  creature  before  ; 
and  a  woman  the  moment  best  worth  living 
for.  .  . 

"  It  seems  to  me,"  said  Effie,  "that  though 
God  has  kindly  given  this  token  of  blessedness 
to  all  —  or  to  so  many  that  we  may  nearly  say 
all  —  without  distinction  of  great  or  humble, 
rich  or  poor,  the  great  and  the  lowly  use  them- 
selves to  the  opposite  faults.  The  great  do  not 
seem  to  think  it  the  most  natural  thing  to 
marry  where  they  first  love  ;  and  the  lowly  are 
too  ready  to  love." 

"  That  is  because  the  great  have  too  many 
things  to  look  to  besides  love  ;  and  the  lowly 


EARLY  WOMANHOOD.  47 

have  too  few.  The  rich  have  their  lighted 
palaces  to  bask  in,  as  well  as  the  sunshine ;  and 
they  must  have  a  host  of  admirers,  as  well  as 
one  bosom  friend.  And  when  the  poor  man 
finds  that  there  is  one  bliss  that  no  power  on 
earth  can  shut  him  out  from,  and  one  that 
drives  out  all  evils  for  the  time  —  one  that 
makes  him  forget  the  noon-day  heats,  and  one 
that  tempers  the  keen  north  wind,  and  makes 
him  walk  at  his  full  height  when  his  superiors 
lounge  past  him  in  the  street  —  no  wonder  he 
is  eager  to  meet  it,  and  jogs  the  time-glass  to 
make  it  come  at  the  soonest.  If  such  a  man  is 
imprudent,  I  had  rather  be  he  than  one  that 
first  lets  it  slip  through  cowardice,  and  would 
then  bring  it  back  to  gratify  his  low  ambition!  " 

"And  for  those  who  let  it  go  by  for  con- 
science sake,  and  do  not  ask  for  it  again  ? " 

"  Why,  they  are  happy  in  having  learned  what 
the  one  feeling  is  that  life  is  wortJi  living  for. 
They  may  make  themselves  happy  upon  it  for 
ever,  after  that.  Oh!  Effie,  you  would  not 
believe,  nothing  could  make  you  believe,  what 
I  was  the  day  before  and  the  day  after  I  saw 
that  sudden  change  of  look  of  yours  that  told 
me  all.  The  one  day,  I  was  shrinking  inwardly 
from  everything  I  had  to  do,  and  every  word  of 
my  father's,  and  everybody  I  met ;  and  was 
always  trying  to  make  myself  happy  in  myself 
alone,  with  the  sense  of  God  being  near  me 
and  with  me.  The  other  day,  I  looked  down 
upon  everybody,  in  a  kindly  way ;  and  yet  I 
looked  up  to  them,  too,  for  I  felt  a  respect  that 
I  never  knew  before  for  all  that  were  suffering 


48  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

and  enjoying;  and  I  felt  as  if  I  could  have 
brought  the  whole  world  nearer  to  God,  if  they 
would  have  listened  to  me.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  best  moment  of  all  —  when  my  mind  had 
suddenly  ceased  being  in  a  great  tumult,  which 
had  as  much  pain  as  pleasure  in  it.  When  I 
said  distinctly  to  myself,  'She  loves  me,' 
Heaven  came  down  round  about  me  that 
minute."51 

This  tells  how  Harriet  Martineau  could  love 
in  her  youth.  Perhaps  the  stream  ran  all  the 
more  powerfully  for  its  course  being  checked  ; 
for  it  was  over  three  years  after  she  met  and 
became  attached  to  Mr.  Worthington  before 
their  love  was  allowed  to  be  declared,  and  their 
engagement  was  permitted  —  a  long  period  for 
hope  and  fear  to  do  their  painful  office  in  the 
soul,  a  long  test  of  the  reality  of  the  love  on 
both  sides. 

Her  extensive  and  deep  studies,  her  suffer- 
ings and  inward  strivings  from  her  deafness, 
and  the  joys  and  anxieties  of  her  love,  were 
the  chief  moulding  influences  of  her  early 
womanhood.  We  shall  soon  see  how  she  came 
to  seek  expression  for  the  results  of  all  these 
in  literature. 

*  Illustrations  of  Political  Economy :  "  A  Tale  of  the  Tyne," 
pp.  54,  et  seq.  This  passage  is  doubly  interesting  from  the 
fact  that  Mr.  Malthus,  the  discoverer  of  the  Population  Law, 
sent  specially  to  thank  her  for  having  written  it. 


CHAPTER  III. 

EARLIEST    WRITINGS. 

HARRIET  MARTINEAU'S  first  attempt  to  write 
for  publication  was  made  in  the  same  year  that 
her  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Worthington  was 
formed;  in  1822,  when  she  was  twenty  years 
old.  It  was,  apparently,  at  the  close  of  the 
vacation  in  which  Worthington  had  visited  his 
friend  Martineau  at  Norwich,  that  she  com- 
menced a  paper  with  the  design  of  offering  it 
to  the  Unitarian  magazine,  The  MontJdy  Re- 
pository. She  had  told  James  that  when  he 
had  returned  to  college  she  should  be  miser- 
able, and  he  had,  with  equal  kindness  and  sense, 
advised  her  to  try  to  forget  her  feelings  about 
the  parting  by  an  attempt  at  authorship.  On  a 
bright  September  morning,  therefore,  when  she 
had  seen  him  start  by  the  early  coach,  soon 
after  six,  she  sat  down  in  her  own  room  with  a 
supply  of  foolscap  paper  before  her  to  write 
her  first  article. 

The  account  which  she  —  writing  from  mem- 
ory—  gives  in  her  autobiography,  of  this  little 


50  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

transaction,  is  curiously  inaccurate,  as  far  as  the 
trifling  details  are  concerned.  Her  own  state- 
ment is  that  she  took  the  letter  "V"  for  her 
signature,  and  that  she  found  her  paper  printed 
in  the  next  number  of  the  magazine,  "  and  in 
the  'Notices  to  Correspondents'  a  request  to 
hear  more  from  'V  of  Norwich."  Her  little 
errors  about  these  facts  must  be  corrected, 
because  the  truth  of  the  matter  is  at  once  sug- 
gestive and  amusing. 

The  article  may  be  found  in  the  Monthly 
Repository  for  October,  1822.  It  is  signed,  not 
"V,"  but  "Discipulus."  This,  it  need  hardly 
be  pointed  out,  is  the  masculine  form  of  the 
Latin  for  learner,  or  apprentice.  The  note  in 
the  correspondents'  column  is  not  in  that  same 
month's  magazine  ;  but  in  the  number  for  the 
succeeding  month,  the  editor  says  in  his 
answers  to  correspondents  :  "The  continuation 
of  '  Discipulus  '  has  come  to  hand.  His  other 
proposed  communications  will  probably  be 
acceptable."  If  more  proofs  than  these  were 
required  that  the  youthful  authoress  had  pre- 
sented herself  to  her  editor  in  a  manly  disguise, 
it  would  be  furnished  by  a  passage  in  one  of 
these  "  Discipulus  "  articles,  in  which  she  defi- 
nitely figures  herself  as  a  masculine  writer, 
speaking  of  "  our  sex  "  (i.  c.  the  male  sex)  as  a 
man  would  do.  The  interesting  fact  is  thus 


EARLIEST   WRITINGS.  51 

disclosed  that  Harriet  Martineau  adds  another 
to  the  group  of  the  most  eminent  women  writers 
of  this  century  who  thought  it  necessary  to 
assume  the  masculine  sex  in  order  to  obtain  a 
fair  hearing  and  an  impartial  judgment  for  their 
earliest  work.  Surely,  as  our  "  Discipulus " 
takes  her  place  in  this  list  with  George  Eliot, 
George  Sand,  and  Currer,  Ellis,  and  Acton 
Bell,  great  deal  is  disclosed  to  us  about  how 
women  in  the  past  have  had  to  make  their  way 
to  recognition  against  the  tide  of  public  opinion. 

That  first  printed  essay  is  interesting  because 
it  was  the  precursor  of  so  long  a  course  of  liter- 
ary work,  rather  than  for  itself.  Yet  it  is  not 
without  its  own  interest,  and  is  very  far  indeed 
from  being  the  crude,  imperfect  performance 
of  the  ordinary  amateur.  The  subject  is  "Fe- 
male Writers  of  Practical  Divinity."  Here  are 
the  first  words  that  Harriet  Martineau  uttered 
through  the  press  : 

"  I  do  not  know  whether  it  has  been  re- 
marked by  others  as  well  as  myself,  that  some 
of  the  finest  and  most  useful  English  works  on 
the  subject  of  practical  Divinity  are  by  female 
authors.  I  suppose  it  is  owing  to  the  peculiar 
susceptibility  of  the  female  mind,  and  its  con- 
sequent warmth  of  feeling,  that  its  productions, 
when  they  are  really  valuable,  find  a  more 
ready  way  to  the  heart  than  those  of  the  other 


52  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

sex ;  and  it  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  see 
women  gifted  with  superior  talents  applying 
those  talents  to  promote  the  cause  of  religion 
and  virtue." 

There  is  nothing  remarkable  in  the  literary 
form  of  this  first  article.  How  soon  she  came 
to  have  a  style  of  her  own,  vivid,  stirring,  and 
instinct  with  a  powerful  individuality,  may  have 
been  gathered  already  from  the  quotations 
given  in  our  last  chapter.  But  in  her  first 
paper  the  style  is  coldly  correct ;  imitative  of 
good  but  severe  models,  and  displaying  none 
of  the  writer's  individuality.  Two  points  as 
regards  the  matter  of  the  essay  are  of  special 
interest,  and  thoroughly  characteristic.  It  is 
interesting,  in  the  first  place,  to  know  that  she 
who  was  destined  to  do  probably  more  than  any 
other  one  woman  of  her  century  for  the  en- 
largement of  the  sphere  of  her  sex  in  the  field 
of  letters,  should  have  written  her  first  article 
on  the  subject  of  the  capacity  of  women  to 
teach  through  their  writings.  The  second 
point  worth  noticing  is  that  her  idea  of  "prac- 
tical Divinity  "  is  simply,  good  conduct.  The- 
ological disputation  and  dogma  do  not  disturb 
her  pages.  Her  view  of  practical  Divinity  is 
that  it  teaches  morals  ;  and  it  is  largely  because 
the  women  to  whose  writings  she  draws  atten- 
tion have  occupied  themselves  with  the  attempt 


EARLIEST  WRITINGS.  53 

to  trace  out  rules  of  conduct,  that  she  is  inter- 
ested in  their  writings,  and  rejoices  in  their 
labors.  Indeed,  she  only  alludes  once  to  the 
opinions  on  dogmatic  theology  of  the  writers 
whom  she  quotes,  and  then  she  does  it  only  to 
put  aside  with  scorn  the  idea  that  morality  and 
teaching  should  be  rejected  because  of  differ- 
ences upon  points  of  theology. 

Encouraged  by  the  few  stately  words  with 
which  the  editor  of  the  Repository  had  received 
the  offer  of  more  contributions,  "  Discipulus " 
continued  his  literary  labors,  and  the  result 
appeared  in  a  paper  on  "Female  Education," 
published  in  the  Monthly  Repository  of  Febru- 
ary, 1823.  This  is  a  noble  and  powerful  appeal 
for  the  higher  education  of  girls  and  the  full 
development  of  all  the  powers  of  our  sex.  It 
is  written  with  gentleness  and  tact,  but  it 
courageously  asserts  and  demands  much  that 
was  strange  indeed  to  the  tone  of  that  day, 
though  it  has  become  quite  commonplace  in 
ours. 

The  author  (supposed  to  be  a  man,  be  it 
remembered,)  disclaimed  any  intention  of  prov- 
ing that  the  minds  of  women  were  equal  to 
those  of  men,  but  only  desired  to  show  that 
what  little  powers  the  female  intellect  might 
possess  should  be  fully  cultivated.  Neverthe- 
less, the  fact  was  pointed  out  that  women  had 


54  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

seldom  had  a  chance  of  showing  how  near  they 
might  be  able  to  equal  men  intellectually,  for 
while  the  lad  was  at  the  higher  school  and 
college,  preparing  his  mind  for  a  future,  "the 
girl  is  probably  confined  to  low  pursuits,  her 
aspirings  after  knowledge  are  subdued,  she  is 
taught  to  believe  that  solid  information  is 
unbecoming  her  sex ;  almost  her  whole  time  is 
expended  on  low  accomplishments,  and  thus, 
before  she  is  sensible  of  her  powers,  they  are 
checked  in  their  growth  and  chained  down  to 
mean  objects,  to  rise  no  more;  and  when  the 
natural  consequences  of  this  mode  of  treatment 
are  seen,  all  mankind  agree  that  the  abilities 
of  women  are  far  inferior  to  those  of  men." 
Having  shown  reasons  to  believe  that  women 
would  take  advantage  of  higher  opportunities 
if  such  were  allowed  them,  "Discipulus"  main- 
tained in  detail  that  the  cultivation  of  their 
minds  would  improve  them  for  all  the  accepted 
feminine  duties  of  life,  charitable,  domestic 
and  social,  and  that  the  consequent  elevation 
of  the  female  character  would  react  beneficially 
on  the  male;  cited  the  works  of  a  cluster  of 
eminent  authoresses,  as  showing  that  women 
could  think  upon  "the  noblest  subjects  that 
can  exercise  the  human  mind  ;  "  and  closed  with 
the  following  paragraph,  wherein  occurred  the 
phrases  by  which  it  is  shown  that  our  "  Disci- 


EARLIEST  WRITINGS.  55 

pulus "  of  twenty  is  masquerading  as  a  man, 
more  decisively  even  than  by  the  termination 
of  the  Latin  nom  de guerre : 

"I  cannot  better  conclude  than  with  the 
hope  that  these  examples  of  what  may  be  done 
may  excite  a  noble  emulation  in  their  own  sex, 
and  in  ours  such  a  conviction  of  the  value  of 
the  female  mind,  as  shall  overcome  our  long- 
cherished  prejudices,  and  induce  us  to  give  our 
earnest  endeavors  to  the  promotion  of  women  s 
best  interests." 

It  is  most  interesting  to  thus  discover  that 
Harriet  Martineau's  first  writings  were  upon 
that  "woman  question"  which  she  lived  to 
see  make  such  wonderful  advances,  and  which 
she  so  much  forwarded,  both  by  her  direct 
advocacy,  and  by  the  indirect  influence  of  the 
proof  which  she  afforded,  that  a  woman  may  be 
a  thinker  upon  high  topics  and  a  teacher  and 
leader  of  men  in  practical  politics,  and  yet  not 
only  be  irreproachable  in  her  private  life,  but 
even  show  herself  throughout  it,  in  the  best 
sense,  truly  feminine. 

Harriet  contributed  nothing  more  to  the 
Monthly  Repository  after  this  (so  far  as  can  now 
be  ascertained),  for  a  considerable  time.  En- 
couraged by  the  success  of  her  first  attempts 
with  periodicals,  she  commenced  a  book  of  a 
distinctly  religious  character,  which  was  issued 


56  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

in  the  autumn  of  the  same  year,  1823,  by  Hunter, 
of  St.  Paul's  Churchyard. 

The  little  volume  was  published  anonymously. 
Its  title-page  runs  thus  :  "Devotional  Exercises; 
consisting  of  Reflections  and  Prayers  for  the 
use  of  Young  Persons.  To  which  is  added  an 
Address  on  Baptism.  By  a  lady." 

The  character  of  the  work  is  perhaps  suffi- 
ciently indicated  by  the  title.  But  it  would  be 
a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  book  is  a  common- 
place one.  It  contains  a  good  deal  of  dogma- 
tism and  many  platitudes.  It  contains,  likewise, 
however,  many  a  noble  thought  and  many  a 
high  aspiration,  expressed  in  words  equally 
flowing  and  fervent.  A  "Reflection"  (some- 
thing like  a  short  sermon)  and  a  prayer  are  sup- 
plied for  each  morning  and  each  evening  of  the  - 
seven  days  of  the  week.  She  had  already 
attained  to  such  an  insight  into  the  human  mind 
as  to  recognize  that  religious  devotion  is  an 
exercise  of  the  emotions.  Proof,  too,  is  given 
in  this  little  work  of  the  fullness  with  which  she 
realized  that  true  religion  must  be  expressed  by 
service  to  mankind  ;  to  those  nearest  to  one  first, 
and  afterwards  to  others ;  and  indeed,  that  a 
high  sense  of  social  duty,  with  a  fervent  and 
unselfish  devotion  to  it,  is  religion,  rather  than 
either  the  spiritual  dram-drinking,  or  the  dog- 
matic irrationality  to  which  that  name  of  high 
import  is  frequently  applied. 


EARLIEST   WRITINGS.  $? 

The  prayers  in  this  little  volume  differ  much 
from  the  supplications  for  personal  benefits 
which  are  commonly  called  prayers. 

These  are  rather  aspirations,  or  meditations. 
The  highest  moral  attributes,  personified  in 
God,  are  held  up  for  the  worship  of  the  imper- 
fect human  creature,  with  fervent  aspiration  to 
approach  as  nearly  as  possible  towards  that  light 
of  unsullied  goodness. 

The  lack  of  petitions  for  material  benefits 
which  appears  in  these  "Devotions"  was  by  no 
means  unconscious,  instinctive,  or  accidental. 
She  had  deliberately  given  up  the  practice  of 
praying  for  personal  benefits,  partly  because 
she  held  that,  since  it  is  impossible  for  us  to 
foresee  how  far  our  highest  interests  may  be 
served  or  hindered  by  changes  in  our  external 
circumstances,  it  is  not  for  us  to  attempt  to 
indicate,  or  even  to  form  a  desire,  as  to  what 
those  circumstances  shall  be.  As  regarded  the 
emotional  side  of  her  religion,  she  had  come  to 
prefer  to  leave  herself  and  her  fate  to  the  unques- 
tioned direction  of  a  higher  power. 

But  there  was  more  than  this  in  it.  In  her 
philosophical  studies,  she  had,  of  course,  met 
with  the  eternal  debates  of  metaphysicians  and 
theologians  on  Foreknowledge,  Fate,  and  Free- 
dom of  the  Will.  The  difficult  question  had, 
indeed,  presented  itself  to  her  active  and  acute 


58  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

young  mind  long  before  those  studies  began. 
She  remembered  that  when  she  was  but  eleven 
years  old  she  found  courage  to  offer  her  question- 
ings upon  this  point  to  her  elder  brother 
Thomas.  She  asked :  If  God  foreknew  from 
eternity  all  the  evil  deeds  that  every  one  of  us 
should  do  in  our  lives,  how  can  He  justly  punish 
us  for  those  actions,  when  the  time  comes  that 
we  are  born,  and  in  due  course  commit  them  ? 
Her  brother  replied  merely  that  she  was  not 
yet  old  enough  to  understand  the  point.  The 
answer  did  not  satisfy  the  child.  She  knew 
that  if  she  were  old  enough  to  feel  the  difficulty, 
she  must  also  be  mentally  fit  to  receive  some 
kind  of  explanation.  But  under  the  pastoral 
influence  of  Dr.  Carpenter,  the  emotional  side 
of  her  religion  was  cultivated,  and  such  doubts 
and  difficulties  of  the  reason  were  put  away  for 
the  time. 

Not  for  all  time,  however,  could  the  problem 
be  shirked  by  so  active,  logical,  and  earnest  a 
mind.  It  recurred  to  her  when  she  was  left  to 
her  own  spiritual  guidance.  Long  before  the 
date  of  these  "  Devotions  "  she  had  fought  out 
the  battle  in  her  own  mind,  and  had  reached 
the  standpoint  from  which  her  Prayers  are  writ- 
ten. She  had  convinced  herself  of  the  truth 
of  the  Necessitarian  doctrine,  that  we  are  what 
we  are,  we  do  what  we  do,  because  of  the 


EARLIEST  WRITINGS.  59 

impulses  given  by  our  previous  training  and 
circumstances  ;  and  that  the  way  to  amend  any 
human  beings  or  all  mankind  is  to  improve 
their  education,  and  to  give  them  good  sur- 
roundings and  influences,  and  mental  associa- 
tions ;  in  short,  that  physical  and  psychological 
phenomena  alike  depend  upon  antecedent 
phenomena,  called  causes. 

As  soon  as  she  had  thus  settled  her  mind  in 
the  doctrine  of  Necessity,  she  perceived  that 
prayer,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term,  had 
become  impossible.  If  it  be  believed  that  all 
that  happe-ns  in  the  world  is  the  consequence  of 
the  course  of  the  events  which  have  happened 
before,  it  is  clear  that  no  petitions  can  alter  the 
state  of  things  at  any  given  moment.  A  belief 
in  the  efficacy  of  "beseiging  Heaven  with 
prayers  "  implies  a  supposition  that  a  Supreme 
Ruler  of  the  Universe  interferes  arbitrarily 
with  the  sequence  of  events.  Those  whose 
minds  are  clear  that  no  such  arbitrary  inter- 
ference ever  does  take  place,  but  that,  on  the 
contrary,  like  events  always  and  invariably  fol- 
low from  like  causes,  cannot  rationally  ask  for 
this  fundamental  rule  of  the  government  of  the 
universe  to  be  set  aside  for  their  behoof ;  even 
although  they  may  believe  in  an  all-powerful 
Divine  Ruler,  who  has  appointed  this  sequence 
of  events  for  the  law  under  which  His  creatures 
shall  live  and  develop. 


60  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

Still,  however,  Harriet  Martineau  supplicated 
for  spiritual  benefits,  as  we  have  seen  in  the 
little  volume  of  Devotional  Exercises.  These 
aspirations  not  only  gave  her  an  emotional 
satisfaction,  but  were,  she  then  thought,  justifi- 
able on  necessitarian  principles ;  for  each  time 
that  we  place  our  minds  in  a  certain  attitude  we 
increase  their  "  set "  in  the  same  direction  ; 
and  she  believed  at  that  time  that  a  holy  life 
was  in  this  way  aided  by  frequent  reflections 
on  and  aspirations  towards  the  highest  ideal  of 
holiness  personified  in  the  name  of  God. 

Her  religious  belief  was,  then,  pure  Theism. 
To  her,  it  was  still  very  good  to  be  a  worship- 
per of  Jehovah,  the  Eternal  Presence,  the  Ever- 
living  Supreme;  and  Jesus  was  His  Messenger, 
the  highest  type  that  He  had  ever  permitted  to 
be  revealed  to  man  of  the  excellencies  of  the 
divine  nature.  But  there  was  no  Atonement, 
no  personal  Evil  One,  no  hell,  no  verbally- 
inspired  revelation  in  her  creed. 

It  will  be  unnecessary  to  say  more  about  her 
theological  beliefs  till  the  next  twenty  years 
have  been  recorded,  for  in  that  period  there 
was  substantially  no  change  in  her  views. 
There  did  come,  indeed,  a  change  in  her  method 
of  self-management  and  in  her  opinions  as  to 
the  way  in  which  religious  feelings  should 
affect  daily  life.  She  soon  concluded  that  we 


EARLIEST  WRITINGS.  6 1 

are  best  when  least  self-conscious  about  our 
own  goodness,  and  that,  therefore,  we  should 
rely  upon  receiving  inspiration  to  right  and 
elevated  feelings  from  passing  influences,  and 
should  refrain  from  putting  our  minds,  by  a 
regular  exercise  of  volition,  into  affected  post- 
ures in  anticipation  of  those  high  emotions 
which  we  cannot  command.  Under  these 
beliefs  she  soon  ceased  all  formal  prayer. 
Meantime  she  was  still,  at  twenty-one  years 
old,  in  the  condition  of  mind  to  write  Devo- 
tional Exercises. 

The  little  book  met  with  a  favorable  accept- 
ance among  the  Unitarians,  and  speedily  went 
into  the  second  edition.  Thus  encouraged, 
Harriet  began  another  volume  of  the  same 
character.  Such  work  could  not  proceed  very 
fast,  however,  for  her  domestic  duties  were  not 
light,  and  her  writing  was  still  looked  upon  in 
her  family  as  a  mere  recreation.  She  labored 
under  all  the  disadvantages  of  the  amateur. 
But  events  soon  began  to  crowd  into  her  life 
to  alter-this  view  of  the  case,  and  to  prepare 
the  way  for  her  beginning  to  do  the  work  of 
her  life  in  the  only  fashion  in  which  such  labor 
can  be  effectively  carried  on — as  a  serious 
occupation,  the  principal  feature  of  every  day's 
duties. 

After  a  long  period  of  poverty  and  distress, 


62  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

caused  by  the  Napoleonic  wars,  England,  in 
1824,  experienced  the  special  dangers  of  a  time 
of  rapidly  increasing  wealth.  There  was  more 
real  wealth  in  the  country,  owing  to  the  expan- 
sion of  trade,  which  followed  on  the  re-opening 
of  the  continent  to  our  commerce,  but  specula- 
tion made  this  development  appear  far  greater 
than  it  was  in  reality 

There  was,  at  that  time,  no  sort  of  check 
upon  the  issue  of  paper  money.  Not  only  did 
the  Bank  of  England  send  out  notes  without 
limit ;  not  only  could  every  established  bank 
multiply  its  drafts  recklessly ;  but  any  small 
tradesman  who  pleased  might  embark  in  the 
same  business,  and  put  forth  paper  money 
without  check  or  control.  Thus  there  was 
money  in  abundance,  the  rate  of  interest  was 
low,  and  prices  rose. 

The  natural  and  inevitable  consequence  of 
this  state  of  things,  at  a  moment  when  trade 
was  suddenly  revived,  was  a  rage  for  specula- 
tion. Not  only  merchants  and  manufacturers 
were  seized  with  this  epidemic ;  the  desire  for 
higher  profits  than  could  be  obtained  by  quiet 
and  perfectly  safe  investments  spread  amongst 
every  class.  "As  for  what  the  speculation 
was  like,  it  can  hardly  be  recorded  on  the  open 
page  of  history  without  a  blush.  Besides  the 
joint-stock  companies  who  undertook  baking, 


EARLIEST   WRITINGS.  63 

washing,  baths,  life  insurance,  brewing,  coal- 
portage,  wool-growing,  and  the  like,  there  was 
such  a  rage  for  steam  navigation,  canals  and 
railroads,  that  in  the  session  of  1825,  438 
petitions  for  private  Bills  were  presented,  and 
286  private  Acts  were  passed.  ...  It  is  on 
record  that  a  single  share  of  a  mine  on  which 
jC?o  had  been  paid,  yielded  200  per  cent,  hav- 
ing risen  speedily  to  a  premium  of  £1400  per 
share."* 

Periods  of  such  inflation  invariably  and  neces- 
sarily close  in  scenes  of  disaster.  Gold  becomes 
scarce ;  engagements  that  have  been  recklessly 
entered  into  cannot  be  met;  goods  have  been 
produced  in  response  to  a  speculative  instead  of 
a  legitimate  demand,  and  therefore  will  not  sell; 
the  locked-up  capital  cannot  be  released,  nor 
can  it  be  temporarily  supplied,  except  upon  ruin- 
ous terms.  Panic  commences ;  it  spreads  over 
the  business  world  like  fire  over  the  dry  prairies. 
The  badly-managed  banks  and  the  most  specu- 
lative business  houses  begin  to  totter ;  the 
weakest  of  them  fall,  and  the  crash  brings 
down  others  like  a  house  of  cards ;  and  in  the 
depreciation  of  goods  and  the  disappearance  of 
capital,  the  prudent,  sagacious  and  honorable 
merchant  suffers  for  the  folly,  the  recklessness, 
the  avarice  and  the  dishonesty  of  others. 

*  Harriet  Martineau's  History  of  the  Peace,  book  ii,  p.  8. 


64  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

Such  a  crash  came,  from  such  causes,  in  the 
early  winter  of  1825.  Harriet  Martineau's 
father  was  one  of  those  injured  by  the  panic, 
without  having  been  a  party  to  the  errors  which 
produced  it.  He  had  resisted  the  speculative 
mania,  and  allowed  it  to  sweep  by  him  to  its 
flood.  It  was,  therefore,  by  no  fault  of  his 
own  that  he  was  caught  by  the  ebbing  wave, 
and  carried  backwards,  to  be  stranded  in  the 
shallows.  His  house  did  not  fail ;  but  the 
struggle  was  a  cruel  one  for  many  months. 
How  severe  the  crisis  was  may  be  judged  from 
the  fact  that  between  sixty  and  seventy  banks 
stopped  payment  within  six  weeks. 

The  strain  of  this  business  anxiety  told 
heavily  upon  the  already  delicate  health  of  Mr. 
Thomas  Martineau.  In  the  early  spring  of 
1 826  it  became  clear  that  his  days  were  num- 
bered. Up  to  the  commencement  of  that 
troubled  winter  it  had  been  supposed  that  his 
daughters  would  be  amply  provided  for  in  the  ' 
event  of  his  death.  But  so  much  had  been 
lost  in  the  crisis,  that  he  found  himself,  in  his 
last  weeks,  compelled  to  alter  his  will,  and  was 
only  able  to  leave  to  his  wife  and  daughters  a 
bare  maintenance.  He  lingered  on  till  June, 
and  in  that  month  he  died. 

It  was  while'Mr.  Martineau  lay  ill,  that  Har- 
riet's second  book,  Addresses,  Prayers,  and 


EARLIEST  WRITINGS.  65 

Hymns,  passed  through  the  press,  and  the  dying 
father  took  great  interest  and  found  great  com- 
fort in  his  child's  work.  Much  of  it  he  must 
have  read  with  feelings  rendered  solemn  by  his 
situation. 

This  little  volume  so  closely  resembles  the 
Devotional  Exercises,  that  it  is  unnecessary  to 
refer  to  it  at  greater  length.  The  hymns, 
which  are  the  special  feature  of  this  volume, 
do  not  call  for  much  notice.  They  are  not 
quite  commonplace ;  but  verse  was  not  Har- 
riet's natural  medium  of  expression  :  she  wrote 
a  considerable  quantity  of  it  in  her  early  days, 
as  most  young  authors  do  ;  but  she  soon  came 
to  see  for  herself  that  her  gift  of  expression  in 
its  most  elevated  form  was  rather  that  which 
makes  the  orator  than  the  poet. 

The  comparative  poverty  to  which  the  family 
were  reduced  on  Mr.  Martineau's  death  at  once 
freed  Harriet,  to  a  considerable  extent,  from 
the  obstacles  which  had  previously  been  inter- 
posed to  her  spending  time  in  writing.  It  was 
still  far  from  being  recognized  that  literature 
was  to  be  her  profession ;  but  it  was  obvious 
that  if  her  pen  could  bring  any  small  additions 
to  her  income  they  would  be  very  serviceable. 
A  friend  gave  her  an  introduction  to  Mr.  Houl- 
ston,  then  publishing  at  Wellington,  Shrop- 
shire ;  and  a  few  little  tales,  which  she  had 
3 


66  HAKRIET  MARTINEAU. 

lying  by,  were  offered  to  him.  He  accepted 
them,  issued  them  in  tiny  volumes,  and  paid 
her  five  guineas  for  the  copyright  of  each  story. 
This,  then,  was  the  beginning  of  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau's  professional  authorship. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS. 

« 

THE  loss  of  pecuniary  position  did  something 
more  for  Harriet  Martineau  besides  opening  the 
way  to  work  in  literature.  The  knowledge  that 
she  was  now  poor  gave  her  lover  courage  to 
declare  himself,  and  to  seek  her  for  his  wife. 
Poverty,  therefore,  brought  her  that  experience 
which  is  so  much  in  a  woman's  mental  history, 
however  little  it,  perhaps,  goes  for  in  a  man's. 
A  love  in  youth,  fervent,  powerful,  and  pure ; 
a  love,  happy  and  successful  in  the  essential 
point  that  it  is  reciprocated  by  its  object,  how- 
ever fate  may  deny  it  outward  fruition  ;  such  a 
love  once  filling  a  woman's  soul,  sweetens  it  and 
preserves  it  for  her  whole  life  through.  Pity  the 
shriveled  and  decayed  old  hearts  which  were  not 
thus  embalmed  in  youth !  Harriet  Martineau 
did  have  this  precious  experience ;  and  her 
womanliness  of  nature  remained  fresh  and  true 
and  sweet  to  the  end  of  her  days  because  of  it. 
There  may  be  many  married  women  old  maids 
in  heart  —  to  be  so  is  the  punishment  of  those 


68  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

who  marry  without  love  ;  and  there  are  many, 
like  Harriet  Martineau,  who  are  single  in  life, 
but  whose  hearts  have  been  mated,  and  so  made 
alive.  I  do  not  know  that  she  would  have  gained 
by  marriage,  in  any  way,  except  in  the  chance  of 
motherhood,  a  yet  greater  fact  than  love  itself 
to  a  woman.  On  the  other  hand,  her  work  must 
have  been  hindered  by  the  duties  of  married 
life,  even  if  her  marriage  had  been  thoroughly 
happy,  and  her  lot  free  from  exceptional 
material  cares.  Matronage  is  a  profession  in 
itself.  The  duties  of  a  wife  and  mother,  as 
domestic  life  is  at  present  arranged,  absorb 
much  time  and  strength,  and  so  diminish  the 
possibilities  of  intellectual  labor.  Moreover, 
the  laws  regulating  marriage  are  still,  and  fifty 
years  ago  were  far  more,  in  a  very  bad  state ; 
and,  leaving  a  woman  wholly  dependent  for 
fair  treatment,  whether  as  a  wife  or  mother, 
upon  the  mercy  and  goodness  of  the  man  she 
marries,  justify  Harriet  Martineau's  observa- 
tion :  "  The  older  I  have  grown,  the  more  serious 
have  seemed  to  me  the  evils  and  disadvantages 
of  married  life,  as  it  exists  among  us  at  this 
time."  The  wife  who  is  beloved  and  treated  as 
an  equal  partner  in  life,  the  mother  whose,  natural 
rights  in  the  guardianship  of  her  family  are 
respected,  the  mistress  of  a  home  in  which  she 
is  the  sunshine  of  husband  and  children,  must 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.       69 

ever  be  the  happiest  of  women.  But  far  better 
is  it  to  be  as  Harriet  Martineau  was — a  widow 
of  the  heart  by  death  —  than  to  have  the  affec- 
tions torn  through  long  years  by  neglect  and 
cruelty,  springing  less  from  natural  badness 
than  from  the  evil  teaching  of  vile  laws  and 
customs.  Fifty  years  ago  marriage  was  a 
dangerous  step  for  a  woman  ;  and  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau had  reason  for  saying  at  last :  "Thus,  I 
am  not  only  entirely  satisfied  with  my  lot,  but 
think  it  the  very  best  for  me." 

For  a  while,  however,  the  happy  prospect  of 
a  beloved  wifehood  cheered  her  struggling  and 
anxious  life.  But  it  was  not  for  long.  Her 
actual  and  acknowledged  engagement  lasted, 
I  believe,  only  a  few  months.  Mr.  Worthington 
had,  at  this  time,  but  lately  completed  his  course 
as  a  Divinity  student ;  and  he  had  been  appoint- 
ed to  the  joint  charge  of  a  very  large  Unitarian 
Church  at  Manchester.  Conscientiousness  was 
one  of  the  most  marked  features  of  his  character, 
according  to  his  college  friend ;  and  Harriet 
herself  declares  that  she  "venerated  his  moral 
nature."  He  had  thrown  himself  into  the  very 
heavy  pastoral  work  committed  to  him  with  all 
the  devotion  of  this  high  characteristic.  More- 
over, the  long  doubt  and  suspense  of  his  love 
for  her  before  their  engagement,  had,  doubtless, 
worked  unfavorably  upon  his  nervous  system. 


70  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

The  end  of  it  was,  that  he  was  suddenly  seized 
with  a  brain  fever,  in  which  he  became  delirious. 
He  was  removed  to  his  father's  home  in  Leices- 
tershire, to  be  nursed ;  and  in  process  of  time, 
the  fever  was  subdued.  But  the  mind  did  not 
regain  its  balance.  He  was  still,  as  she  says, 
"insane"  ;  but  from  one  of  her  dear  and  early 
friends,  I  hear  that  "  his  family  did  not  call  it 
insanity,"  —  only  a  feeble  and  unhinged  state, 
from  which  recovery  might  have  been  expected 
hopefully. 

In  this  state  of  things  it  was  thought  desirable 
that  the  woman  he  loved  should  be  brought  to 
see  him.  The  beloved  presence,  his  physician 
believed,  might  revive  old  impressions  and  happy 
anticipations,  and  might  be  the  one  thing  need- 
ful to  induce  a  favorable  change  in  his  condition. 
His  mother  wrote  to  beg  Harriet  Martineau  to 
come  to  him ;  Harriet  eagerly  sought  her 
mother's  permission  to  hasten  to  his  side  ;  and 
Mrs.  Martineau  forbade  her  daughter  to  go. 
The  old  habit  of  obedience  to  her  mother,  and 
the  early  implanted  ideas  of  filial  duty,  were 
too  strong  for  Harriet  at  once  to  break  through 
them  ;  she  did  not  defy  her  mother  and  go  ; 
and  in  a  few  more  weeks — terrible  weeks  of 
doubt  and  mental  storm  they  must  have  been, 
between  her  love  and  her  obedience  dragging 
her  different  ways  — Worthington  died,  and 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.       7 1 

left  her  to  her  life  of  heart-widowhood, 
darkened  by  this  shadow  of  arbitrary  separa- 
ration  to  the  last.  "  The  calamity  was  aggra- 
vated to  me,"  she  says,  "by  the  unaccountable 
insults  I  received  from  his  family,  whom  I  had 
never  seen.  Years  after,  the  mystery  was 
explained.  They  had  been  given  to  understand, 
by  cautious  insinuation,  that  I  was  actually 
engaged  to  another  while  receiving  my  friend's 
addresses."  They  had  not  appreciated  how 
submissive  she  was  as  a  daughter ;  and  their 
belief  that  her  love  was  insincere  was  not  an 
unnatural  one  in  the  circumstances. 

Had  those  relatives  of  the  dead  lover  lived  to 
read  Harriet  Martineau's  Autobiography,  they 
would  not  have  been  made  to  think  differently 
of  her  feelings  towards  him ;  for  there  she  goes 
calmly  on,  after  the  passage  above  quoted,  to 
say  only:  "Considering  what  I  was  in  those 
days,  it  was  happiest  for  us  both  that  our  union 
was  prevented."  As  we  have  had  to  look  out- 
side the  Autobiography  for  a  record  of  what 
love  was  to  her,  and  what  it  did  for  her,  so  we 
must  seek  elsewhere  for  the  cry  of  agony  which 
tells  how  she  felt  her  loss.  But  the  record 
exists ;  it  is  found  in  an  essay  entitled  In  a 
Death  Chamber,  one  of  that  autobiographical 
series  published  in  The  Monthly  Repository, 
from  which  I  have  previously  quoted. 


72  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

This  beautiful  piece  of  writing  —  far  more  of 
a  poem  in  essence  than  anything  which  she  ever 
published  in  verse  — is  spoiled  as  a  composi- 
tion by  mutilation  in  quoting.  But  its  length 
leaves  me  no  option  but  to  select  from  it  only  a 
few  of  the  more  confessional  passages,  to  aid  us 
in  our  psychological  study : 

This  weary  watch  !  In  watching  by  the  couch 
of  another  there  is  no  weariness  ;  but  this  lonely 
tending  of  one's  own  sick  heart  is  more  than 
the  worn-out  spirit  can  bear.  What  an  age  of 
woe  since  the  midnight  clock  gave  warning  that 
my  first  day  of  loneliness  was  beginning  —  to 
others  a  Sabbath,  to  me  a  day  of  expiation. 

All  is  dull,  cold  and  dreary  before  me,  until  I 
also  can  escape  to  the  region  where  there  is  no 
bereavement,  no  blasting  root  and  branch,  no 
rending  of  the  heart-strings.  What  is  aught  to 
me,  in  the  midst  of  this  all-pervading,  thrilling 
torture,  when  all  I  want  is  to  be  dead  ?  The 
future  is  loathsome,  and  I  will  not  look  upon  it ; 
the  past,  too,  which  it  breaks  my  heart  to  think 
about  —  what  has  it  been  ?  It  might  have  been 
happy,  if  there  is  such  a  thing  as  happiness  ;  but 
I  myself  embittered  it  at  the  time,  and  for  ever. 
What  a  folly  has  mine  been  !  Multitudes  of 
sins  now  rise  up  in  the  shape  of  besetting  griefs. 
Looks  of  rebuke  from  those  now  in  the  grave  ; 
thoughts  which  they  would  have  rebuked  if  they 
had  known  them ;  moments  of  anger,  of  cold- 
ness ;  sympathy  withheld  when  looked  for ; 
repression  of  its  signs  through  selfish  pride  ; 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.       73 

and  worse,  far  worse  even  than  this  ...  all 
comes  over  me  now.  O  \  if  there  be  pity,  if 
there  be  pardon,  let  it  come  in  the  form  of  insen- 
sibility ;  for  these  long  echoes  of  condemnation 
will  make  me  desperate. 

But  was  there  ever  human  love  unwithered 
by  crime  —  by  crime  of  which  no  human  law 
takes  cognizance,  but  the  unwritten  everlasting 
laws  of  the  affections  ?  Many  will  call  me  thus 
innocent.  The  departed  breathed  out  thanks 
and  blessing,  and  I  felt  them  not  then  as 
reproaches.  If,  indeed,  I  am  only  as  others, 
shame,  shame  on  the  impurity  of  human  affec- 
tions ;  or,  rather,  alas !  for  the  infirmity  of  the 
human  heart !  For  I  know  not  that  I  could  love 
more  than  I  have  loved. 

Since  the  love  itself  is  wrecked,  let  me  gather 
up  its  relics,  and  guard  them  more  tenderly, 
more  steadily,  more  gratefully.  This  seems  to 
open  up  glimpses  of  peace.  O  grant  me  power 
to  retain  them  —  the  light  and  music  of  emotion, 
the  flow  of  domestic  wisdom  and  chastened 
mirth,  the  life-long  watchfulness  of  benevolence, 
the  thousand  thoughts  —  are  these  gone  in  their 
reality  ? '  Must  I  forget  them  as  others  forget  ? 

If  I  were  to  see  my  departed  one  —  that  insen- 
sible, wasted  form  —  standing  before  me  as  it 
was  wont  to  stand,  with  whom  would  I  exchange 
my  joy  ?  .  .  .  But  it  is  not  possible  to  lose  all. 
The  shadows  of  the  past  may  have  as  great 
power  as  their  substance  ever  had,  and  the  spirit 
of  human  love  may  ever  be  nigh,  invested  with 
a  majesty  worthy  to  succeed  the  lustre  of  its 
mortal  days. 


74  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

This  is  the  poem  of  Harriet  Martineau's  love. 
This  is  what  remains  to  show  that  the  girl  whose 
intellect  was  so  powerful,  and  who  had  habitually 
and  of  choice  exercised  her  mind  upon  the  most 
abstruse  studies  and  the  most  difficult  thoughts 
which  can  engage  the  attention,  could  neverthe- 
less feel  at  least  as  fervently,  and  deliver  her- 
self up  to  her  emotions  at  least  as  fully,  as  any 
feeble,  ignorant,  or  narrow-minded  creature  that 
ever  lived.  Surely,  with  the  truth  emphasized 
by  such  an  example,  the  common  but  stupid 
delusion  that  the  development  of  the  intellect 
diminishes  the  capacity  for  passion  and  tender- 
ness, must  fade  away  !  This  girl's  mental  power 
and  her  mental  culture  were  both  unusually 
large  ;  but  here  is  the  core  of  her  heart,  and  is 
it  not  verily  womanly  ? 

This  experience  did  more  than  give  her  hours 
of  happiness  ;  it  did  more  than  bring  to  her  that 
enlargement  of  the  spirit  which  she  so  well 
described  ;  for  it  taught  her  to  appreciate,  and 
to  properly  value,  the  influence  of  the  emotions 
in  life.  Never  in  one  of  her  works,  never  in  a 
single  phrase,  is  she  found  guilty  of  that  blas- 
phemy against  the  individual  affections,  into 
which  some  who  have  yet  sought  to  pose  as  high 
priests  of  the  religion  of  humanity  have  fallen 
and  lost  themselves.  In  all  her  writings  one 
finds  the  continual  recognition  of  the  great  truth 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.       75 

which  was  in  the  mind  of  him  who  said  :  "  If  a 
man  love  not  his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen, 
how  shall  he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen  ?" 
—  a  truth  of  the  very  first  consequence  to  those 
who  aim  at  expressing  their  religion  by  service 
to  the  progress  of  mankind. 

The  year  1826,  to  Harriet  crowded  so  full  of 
trouble,  came  to  an  end  soon  after  Mr.  Worth- 
ington's  death.  In  the  following  year,  though 
she  was  in  very  bad  health,  she  wrote  a  vast 
quantity  of  manuscript.  Some  of  it  was  pub- 
lished at  once.  Other  portions  waited  in  her 
desk  for  a  couple  of  years,  when  her  contribu- 
tions to  The  Monthly  Repository  recommenced, 
after  a  change  in  its  editorship. 

She  wrote  in  the  year  1827  various  short  sto- 
ries, which  were  published  by  Houlston,  of 
Shrewsbury,  without  her  name  on  their  title- 
pages.  Their  character  may  be  guessed  by  the 
fact  that  they  were  circulated  as  Mrs.  Sher- 
wood's writings !  In  tone,  they  resemble  the 
ordinary  Sunday-school  story-book  ;  but  there 
is  a  fire,  an  earnestness,  and  an  originality 
often  discoverable  in  them  which  are  enough 
to  mark  them  out  from  common  hack-writing. 
Two  of  them,  The  Rioters  and  The  Turn  Out, 
deal  with  topics  of  political  economy  ;  but  the 
questions  were  thought  out  (very  accurately)  in 
her  own  mind,  for  at  that  time  she  had  never 
read  a  book  upon  the  subject. 


76  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

These  little  stories  were  so  successful  that 
the  publisher  invited  her  to  write  a  longer  one, 
which  should  have  her  name  attached  to  it. 
She  went  to  work,  accordingly,  and  produced  a 
good  little  tale,  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  pages 
of  print,  which  she  called  Principle  and  Prac- 
tice. It  recounts  the  struggles  of  an  orphan 
family  in  their  efforts  after  independence.  As 
in  all  her  writings  of  this  kind,  her  own  expe- 
rience is  interfused  into  the  fiction.  No  part 
of  this  story  is  so  interesting  as  that  where  a 
young  man  who  has  met  with  an  accident  has 
to  reconcile  his  mind  to  the  anticipation  of  life- 
long lameness —  as  she  to  deafness.  The  sis- 
ters of  this  orphan  family,  too,  make  money  by 
a  kind  of  fancy-work  by  which  she  herself  was 
earning  a  few  guineas  from  the  wealthier  mem- 
bers of  her  family,  namely,  by  cutting  bags  and 
baskets  out  of  pasteboard,  fitting  them  together 
with  silk  and  gold  braid,  and  painting  plaques 
upon  their  sides.  Principle  and  Practice  was 
so  warmly  received  in  the  circle  to  which  it 
was  suited  that  the  publisher  called  for  a  sequel, 
which  was  accordingly  written  early  in  the  fol- 
lowing year. 

There  was  a  vast  quantity  of  writing  in  all 
these  publications  ;  and,  besides  this,  she  was 
continually  at  work  with  her  needle.  Such 
unremitting  sedentary  occupation,  together 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.       77 

with  her  sorrow,  caused  a  serious  illness,  from 
which  she  suffered  during  1828.  It  was  an 
affection  of  the  liver  and  stomach,  for  which 
she  went  to  be  treated  by  her  brother-in-law, 
Mr.  Greenhow,  a  surgeon  at  Newcastle-on- 
Tyne. 

Her  remarkable  powers  of  steady  application, 
and  her  untiring  industry,  were  always*  amongst 
her  most  noteworthy  characteristics  —  as,  in- 
deed, is  proved  by  the  vast  quantity  of  work 
she  achieved.  In  each  of  her  various  illnesses, 
friends  who  had  watched  with  wonder  and 
alarm  how  much  she  wrote,  and  how  unceas- 
ingly she  worked,  either  with  pen,  or  book,  or 
needle  in  hand,  told  her  that  her  suffering  was 
caused  by  her  merciless  industry.  Her  "stay- 
ing power "  was  great ;  she  rarely  felt  utterly 
exhausted,  and  therefore  she  was  impatient  of 
being  told  that  she  had,  in  fact,  over-exerted 
her  strength.  Sometimes,  indeed,  she  admitted 
that  she  worked  too  much,  and  pleaded  only 
that  she  could  not  help  it  —  that  the  work 
needed  doing,  or  that  the  thoughts  pressed  for 

*  "  I  should  think  there  never  was  such  an  industrious 
lady,"  said  the  maid  who  was  with  her  for  the  last  eleven 
years  of  her  life;  "when  I  caught  sight  of  her,  just  once, 
leaning  back  in  her  chair,  with  her  arms  hanging  down,  and 
looking  as  though  she  wasn't  even  thinking  about  anything, 
it  gave  me  quite  a  turn.  I  felt  she  must  be  ill  to  sit  like 
that  I " 


78  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

utterance,  and  she  could  not  refuse  the  call  of 
duty.  But  more  often  she  said,  as  in  a  letter 
to  Mr.  Atkinson,  which  lies  before  me,  "  My 
best  aid  and  support  in  the  miseries  of  my  life 
has  been  in  work  —  in  the  intellectual  labor 
which  I  believe  has  done  me  nothing  but  good." 
So  her  immense  industry  in  1827  may  have 
seemed  to  her  a  relief  from  her  heart-sorrows 
at  the  moment  ;  but  none  the  less  it  probably 
was  the  chief  cause  of  her  partial  breakdown 
in  the  next  year.  A  blister  relieves  internal 
inflammation ;  but  a  succession  of  such  stimuli 
too  long  continued  will  exhaust  the  strength, 
and  render  the  condition  more  critical  than  it 
would  have  been  without  such  treatment. 

At  Newcastle  there  was  a  brief  cessation 
from  work,  under  the  doctor's  orders.  But  in 
the  middle  of  1828  Harriet  began  to  write  again 
for  the  Repository,  in  response  to  an  appeal  put 
forth  by  the  editor  for  gratutious  literary  aid. 
That  editor  was  the  well-known  Unitarian 
preacher,  William  Johnston  Fox,  of  South  Place 
Chapel.  Mr.  Fox  became  Harriet  Martineau's 
first  literary  friend.  He  had  no  money  with 
which  to  reward  her  work  for  his  magazine ; 
but  he  paid  her  amply  in  a  course  of  frank,  full, 
and  generous  private  criticism  and  encourage- 
ment. "  His  correspondence  with  me,"  she 
says,  "was  unquestionably  the  occasion,  and,  in 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.       79 

great  measure,  the  cause,  of  the  greatest  intel- 
lectual progress  I  ever  made  before  the  age  of 
thirty."  Mr  Fox  was  so  acute  a  critic  that  he 
ere  long  predicted  that  "  she  would  be  one  of 
the  first  authors  of  the  age  if  she  continued  to 
write  ;  "  while,  at  the  same  time,  he  offered  sug- 
gestions for  improvement,  and  made  corrections 
in  her  work  upon  occasion.  Her  advance  in 
literary  capacity  was  now  very  rapid.  Her 
style  went  on  improving,  as  it  should  do,  till 
her  latest  years ;  but  it  now  first  became  an 
individual  one,  easy,  flowing,  forcible,  and  often 
most  moving  and  eloquent. 

During  the  latter  half  of  1828  and  the  early 
part  of  the  succeeding  year,  she  contributed, 
more  or  less,  to  nearly  every  monthly  number 
of  the  Repository,  without  receiving  any  pay- 
ment. She  wrote  essays,  poems,  and  so-called 
reviews,  which  last,  however,  were  really 
thoughtful  and  original  papers,  suggested  by  the 
subject  of  a  new  book.  Some  of  these  contri- 
butions were  signed  "  V  "  ;  but  others,  including 
all  the  reviews,  were  anonymous. 

Most  of  these  articles  are  on  philosophical  sub- 
jects,  and  are  written  with  the  calmness  of  style 
suitable  to  logical  and  argumentative  essays. 
In  the  Repository  for  February,  1829,  and  the 
succeeding  month,  for  instance,  there  appeared 
two  papers,  headed,  "  On  the  Agency  of  Feelings 


80  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

in  the  Formation  of  Habits,"  which  are  simply 
an  accurate,  clear,  and  forcibly-reasoned  state- 
ment of  the  philosophical  doctrine  of  Associa- 
tion, with  which  that  of  Necessity  is  inseparably 
connected.  These  were,  it  has  been  already 
observed,  the  theories  by  which  she  was  learning 
both  to  guide  her  own  action  and  to  see  that 
society  is  moulded,  however  unconsciously,  as 
regards  most  of  the  individuals  composing  it. 
A  clearer  statement  of  the  doctrines,  or  a  more 
forcible  indication  of  how  they  can  be  made  to 
serve  as  a  moral  impulse,  cannot  be  imagined. 
Here  is  very  different  work  from  Devotional 
Exercises,  or  Principle  and  Practice.  But  it 
brought  its  author  neither  fame  nor  money. 

Another  piece  of  work  done  in  1828,  or  early 
in  the  following  year,  was  a  Life  of  Howard, 
which  was  written  on  a  positive  commission 
from  a  member  of  the  Committee  of  Lord 
Brougham's  "  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Use- 
ful Knowledge,"  who  promised  her  thirty 
pounds  for  it.  The  MS.  was  at  first  said  to  be 
lost  at  the  office ;  eventually  she  found  that  its 
contents  were  liberally  cribbed  by  the  writer 
of  the  Life  which  was  published ;  but  she 
never  received  a  penny  of  the  promised  pay- 
ment. These  were  her  times  of  stress,  and 
struggle,  and  suffering,  and  disappointment,  in 
literature  as  in  ordinary  life.  Her  great  success, 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.       8 1 

when  at  last  it  did  come,  was  so  sudden  that  her 
previous  work  was  obscured  and  pushed  out  ot 
sight  in  the  blaze  of  triumph.  But  these  years 
of  labor,  unrecognized  and  almost  unrewarded, 
must  not  be  left  out  of  our  view,  if  we  would 
judge  fairly  of  her  character.  Courage,  resolu- 
tion, self-reliance,  determination  to  conquer  in 
a  field  once  entered  upon,  are  displayed  by  her 
quiet  industrious  perseverance  through  those 
laborious  years.  Harriet  Martineau  did  not 
make  a  sudden  and  easy  rush  far  up  the  ladder 
of  fame  all  at  once ;  her  climb,  like  that  of 
most  great  men  and  women,  was  arduous  and 
slow,  and  her  final  success  proved  not  only  that 
she  had  literary  ability,  but  also  the  strength  of 
character  which  could  work  on  while  waiting 
for  recognition. 

Fresh  trouble  was  yet  impending.  After 
Mr.  Martineau's  death,  his  son  Henry  remained 
a  partner  in  the  weaving  business  which  the 
father  had  carried  on  so  long ;  and  the  incomes 
(small,  but  sufficient  for  a  maintenance)  of  the 
widow  and  unmarried  daughters  had  to  be  paid 
out  of  the  profits  of  the  factory.  Just  three 
years  after  Mr.  Martineau's  death,  however,  in 
June,  1829,  the  old  house  became  bankrupt,  with 
but  small  assets.  Mrs.  Martineau  and  her 
daughters  were  thus  deprived  suddenly  of  all 
means  of  support. 


82  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

The  whole  family  met  this  final  blow  to  their 
fortunes  with  calm  courage.  It  was  soon  settled 
that  the  two  girls  who  possessed  all  their  senses 
should  go  out  to  teach  ;  but  Harriet  could  not 
be  set  to  work  in  the  same  way  —  for  pupils 
could  not  easily  be  found  who  would  say  their 
lessons  into  an  ear-trumpet.  The  husband  of 
the  lady  brought  up  by  Mrs.  Martineau  with  her 
youngest  daughter  tells  me  that  upon  this 
occasion  Harriet's  mother  said  to  her  adopted 
child,  "  I  have  no  fear  for  any  of  my  daughters, 
except  poor  Harriet ;  the  others  can  work,  but, 
with  her  deafness,  I  do  not  know  how  she  can 
ever  earn  her  own  bread  !  " 

The  first  resource  for  Harriet  was  fancy  work 
of  different  kinds.  "  I  could  make  shirts  and 
puddings,"  she  declares,  "and  iron,  and  mend, 
and  get  my  bread  by  my  needle,  if  necessary  — 
as  it  was  necessary,  for  a  few  months,  before  I 
won  a  better  place  and  occupation  with  my  pen." 
During  the  winter  which  followed  the  failure  of 
the  old  Norwich  house,  she  spent  the  entire 
daylight  hours  poring  over  fancy-work,  by  which 
alone  she  could  with  certainty  earn  money. 
But  she  did  not  lay  aside  the  sterner  implement 
of  labor  for  that  bright  little  bread-winner,  the 
needle.  After  dark  she  began  a  long  day's 
literary  labor  in  her  own  room. 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.       83 

Every  night,  I  believe,  I  was  writing  till  two, 
or  even  three,  in  the  morning,  obeying  always 
the  rule  of  the  house  of  being  present  at  the 
breakfast-table  as  the  clock  struck  eight.  Many 
a  time  I  was  in  such  a  state  of  nervous  exhaus- 
tion and  distress  that  I  was  obliged  to  walk  to 
and  fro  in  the  room  before  I  could  put  on  paper 
the  last  line  of  a  page,  or  the  last  half -sentence 
of  an  essay  or  review.  Yet  was  I  very  happy. 
The  deep-felt  sense  of  progress  and  expansion 
was  delightful ;  and  so  was  the  exertion  of  all  my 
faculties ;  and  not  least,  that  of  Will  to  over- 
come my  obstructions,  and  force  my  way  to  that 
power  of  public  speech  of  which  I  believed 
myself  more  or  less  worthy.  *J 

She  offered  the  results  of  this  nightly  liter- 
ary toil  to  a  great  number  of  magazine  editors 
and  publishers,  but  without  the  slightest  suc- 
cess. Totally  unknown  in  London  society, 
having  no  literary  friends  or  connections  beyond 
the  editor  of  the  obscure  magazine  of  her  sect, 
her  manuscripts  were  scarcely  looked  at. 
Everything  that  she  wrote  was  returned  upon 
her  hands,  until  she  offered  it  in  despair  to  the 
Monthly  Repository,  where  she  was  as  invari- 
ably successful.  Her  work,  when  published 
there,  however,  brought  her  not  an  atom  of 
fame,  and  only  the  most  trifling  pecuniary 
return.  She  wrote  to  Mr.  Fox,  when  she  found 
herself  penniless,  to  tell  him  that  it  would  be 
impossible  for  her  to  continue  to  render  as 


84  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

much  gratuitous  service  as  she  had  been  doing 
to  the  Repository  ;  but  he  could  only  reply  that 
the  means  at  his  disposal  were  very  limited, 
and  that  the  utmost  he  could  offer  her  was 
.£15  a  year,  for  which  she  was  to  write  "as 
much  as  she  thought  proper."  With  this  let- 
ter he  forwarded  her  a  parcel  of  nine  books  to 
review,  as  a  commencement.  A  considerable 
portion  of  the  space  in  his  magazine  was  filled 
by  Miss  Martineau  for  the  next  two  years  on 
these  terms. 

The  essay  previously  referred  to,  on  the 
"Agency  of  Feelings  in  the  Formation  of 
Habits,"  which  appeared  in  the  Repository  for 
February  and  March,  1829,  was  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau's  first  marked  work.  It  was  followed 
up  by  a  series,  commencing  in  the  August  of 
the  same  year,  of  "  Essays  on  the  Art  of 
Thinking,"  which  were  continued  in  the  mag- 
azine until  December,  when  two  chapters  were 
given  in  the  one  number,  in  order,  as  the  editor 
remarked,  that  his  readers  "might  possess 
entire  in  one  volume  this  valuable  manual  of 
the  Art  of  Thought." 

"V,"  the  writer  of  these  articles,  was  sup- 
posed to  be  of  the  superior  sex.  In  those  days, 
Mr.  Fox  would  have  shown  rare  courage  if  he 
had  informed  his  readers  that  they  were  "  re- 
ceiving valuable  instruction  "  in  how  to  exer- 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.       85 

else  their  ratiocinative  faculties  from  the  pen 
of  a  woman.  In  the  Index,  I  find  the  refer- 
ences run  —  "V.'s"  "Ode  to  Religious  Lib- 
erty"; his  "Last  Tree  of  the  Forest";  his 
"Essays  on  the  Art  of  Thinking,"  etc.,  etc. 

The  "  Essays  on  the  Art  of  Thinking "  are 
nothing  less  than  an  outline  of  Logic.  In  sub- 
stance, they  present  no  great  originality ;  but 
they  display  full  internal  evidence  that  the 
thoughts  presented  were  the  writer's  own,  and 
not  merely  copied  from  authority.  It  is  really 
no  light  test  of  clearness  and  depth  of  thought 
to  write  on  an  abstruse  science  in  lucid,  per- 
spicuous fashion,  giving  a  brief  but  complete 
view  of  all  its  parts  in  their  true  relations. 
Only  an  accurate  thinker,  with  a  mind  both 
capacious  and  orderly,  can  perform  such  a  task. 
The  highest  function  of  the  human  mind  is, 
doubtless,  that  of  the  discoverer.  The  original 
thinker,  he  who  observes  his  facts  from  nature 
at  first  hand,  who  compares  them,  and  reasons 
about  them,  and  combines  them,  and  general- 
izes a  principle  from  them,  is  the  one  whom 
posterity  to  all  time  must  honor  and  reverence 
for  his  additions  to  the  store  of  human  knowl- 
edge. But  not  far  inferior  in  power,  and  equal 
in  immediate  usefulness,  is  the  disciple  who 
can  judge  the  originator's  work,  and,  finding  it 
perfectly  in  accordance  with  facts  as  known  to 


86  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

him,  can  receive  it  into  his  mind,  arrange  it  in 
order,  deck  it  with  illustration,  illuminate  it 
with  power  of  language,  and  represent  it  in  a 
form  suitable  for  general  comprehension. 
There  is  originality  of  mind  needed  for  such 
work  ;  that  which  is  done,  the  adaptation  of 
the  truths  to  be  received  to  the  receptive 
powers  of  the  multitude,  is  an  original  work 
performed  upon  the  truths,  hardly  inferior  in 
difficulty  and  utility  to  that  of  him  who  first 
discerns  them.  This  was  the  class  of  work 
which  Harriet  Martineau  was  beginning  to  do, 
and  to  do  well.  But  there  was  more  than  this 
in  her  purposes. 

As  these  articles,  though  vastly  inferior  in 
execution  to  what  she  afterwards  did,  neverthe- 
less show  the  essential  characteristics  of  her 
work,  this  seems  to  be  the  most  favorable 
opportunity  to  pause  to  inquire  what  was  the 
special  feature  of  her  writings.  For,  various 
though  her  subjects  appear  to  be,  ranging  from 
the  humblest  topics,  such  as  the  duties  of 
maids-of-all-work,  up  to  the  highest  themes  of 
mental  and  political  philosophy,  yet  I  find  one 
informing  idea,  one  and  the  same  moving 
impulse  to  the  pen  of  the  writer,  throughout 
the  whole  series.  Let  us  see  what  it  was  that 
she  really,  though  half  unconsciously  perhaps, 
kept  before  her  as  her  aim. 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.       87 

It  is  obvious  at  once  that  her  writings  are  all 
designed  to  teach.  A  little  closer  consideration 
shows  that  what  they  seek  to  teach  is  always 
wJiat  is  rigJit  conduct.  Abstract  truth  merely 
as  such  does  not  content  her.  She  seeks  its 
practical  concrete  application  to  daily  life. 
Further,  not  merely  has  she  the  aim  of  teach- 
ing morals,  but  she  invariably  makes  facts  and 
reasonings  from  facts  the  basis  of  her  moral 
teachings.  In  other  words,  she  approaches 
morals  from  the  scientific  instead  of  the  intui- 
tional side  ;  and  to  thus  influence  conduct  is 
the  invariable  final  object  of  her  writings. 

It  would  sound  simpler  to  say  that  she  wrote 
on  the  science  of  morals.  But  the  term  "  moral 
science "  has  already  been  appropriated  to  a 
class  of  writing  than  which  nothing  could,  very 
often,  less  deserve  the  name  of  science.  The 
work  which  Harriet  Martineau  spent  her  whole 
life  in  doing,  was,  however,  true  work  in  moral 
science.  What  she  was  ever  seeking  to  do  was 
to  find  out  how  men  should  live  from  what  men 
and  their  surroundings  are.  She  must  be  rec- 
ognized as  one  of  the  first  thinkers  to  uniformly 
consider  practical  morals  as  derived  from  rea- 
soned science. 

Many  of  the  articles  contributed  to  the  Repos- 
itory were  naturally,  from  the  character  of  the 
publication,  upon  theology.  Much  that  is 


88  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

noticeable  might  be  culled  from  amongst  them  ; 
as,  indeed,  could  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that 
an  able  leader  of  her  religious  body  allowed 
her  to  fill  so  very  large  a  portion  of  the  pages 
by  which,  under  his  guidance,  the  Unitarian 
public  were  instructed.  In  all  the  essays,  a 
distinguishing  feature  is  the  earnestness  of  the 
effort  put  forth  to  judge  the  questions  at  issue 
by  reason,  and  not  by  prejudice.  It  is  true 
that  the  effort  often  fails.  There  comes  the 
moment  at  which  faith  in  dogma  intervenes, 
and  submerges  the  pure  argument ;  but  none 
the  less  do  the  spirit  of  justice  and  fairness, 
and  the  love  of  truth,  irradiate  the  whole  of 
these  compositions. 

Mr.  Fox  soon  asked  her  if  she  thought  that 
any  of  her  ideas  could  be  expressed  through  the 
medium  of  fiction.  It  so  happened  that  the 
suggestion  precisely  fell  in  with  a  thought  that 
had  already  occurred  to  her  that  "of  all  delight- 
ful tasks,  the  most  delightful  would  be  to 
describe,  with  all  possible  fidelity,  the  aspect 
of  the  life  and  land  of  the  Hebrews,  at  the 
critical  period  of  the  full  expectation  of  the 
Messiah."  She  wrote  a  story  which  she  called 
The  Hope  of  the  Hebrews,  in  which  a  company 
of  young  people,  relatives  and  friends,  were 
shown  as  undergoing  the  alternations  of  doubt 
and  hope  about  whether  this  teacher  was  indeed 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.       89 

Messiah,  on  the  first  appearance  of  Jesus  in 
Palestine.  The  day  after  this  story  appeared 
in  the  Repository  Mr.  Fox  was  at  an  anniver- 
sary dinner  of  the  sect,  where  so  many  per- 
sons spoke  to  him  about  the  tale,  that  he  wrote 
and  generously  advised  Harriet  not  to  publish 
any  more  such  stories  in  his  magazine,  but  to 
make  a  book  of  them.  She  adopted  the  sug- 
gestion ;  the  little  volume  was  issued  with  her 
name,  and  proved  her  first  decisive  success. 
Not  only  was  it  well  circulated  and  highly 
appreciated  in  England,  but  it  was  translated 
into  French,  under  high  ecclesiastical  sanction, 
and  was  also  immediately  reproduced  in  the 
United  States. 

While  this  book  was  in  the  press,  she  went 
to  stay  for  a  short  time  in  London.  Mr.  Fox, 
hearing  from  her  how  anxious  she  was  to  earn 
her  livelihood  by  literature,  succeeded  in  obtain- 
ing from  a  printer  friend  of  his  an  offer  for  her 
to  do  "proof  correcting  and  other  drudgery," 
if  she  liked  to  remain  in  London  for  the  work. 
This  would  have  given  her  a  small  but  certain 
income,  and  there  could  be  little  doubt  that,  if 
she  stayed  in  London,  she  would  gradually  get 
into  some  journalistic  employment  which  would 
enable  her  to  support  herself  tolerably  well. 
There  were  no  great  hopes  in  the  matter.  Mr. 
Fox  told  her  that  "  one  hundred  or  one  hundred 


90  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

and  fifty  pounds  a  year  is  as  much  as  our  most 
successful  writers  usually  make  "  —  success  here 
meaning,  of  course,  full  employment  in  hack- 
work. It  had  not  yet  occurred,  even  to  Mr. 
Fox,  that  she  was  to  be  really  a  successful 
author.  But  to  do  even  this  drudgery,  and  to 
take  the  poor  chance  now  offered  to  her,  implied 
that  she  must  make  her  home  in  London  ;  and 
she  wrote  to  inform  her  mother  of  this  fact. 

The  same  post  which  carried  Harriet's  letter 
to  this  effect,  bore  to  Mrs.  Martineau  a  second 
missive,  from  the  relative  with  whom  her 
daughter  was  staying,  which  strongly  advised 
that  Harriet  should  be  recalled  home,  there  to 
pursue  the  needle-work  by  which  she  had  proved 
she  could  earn  money.  The  good  lady  had  been 
wont  to  ask  Harriet  day  by  day  "  how  much  she 
would  get "  for  the  literary  labor  upon  which 
she  had  expended  some  hours ;  and  the  poor 
young  author's  reply  not  being  satisfactory  or 
precise,  her  hostess  looked  upon  the  time  spent 
at  the  desk  as  so  much  wasted.  She  gave 
Harriet  some  pieces  of  silk,  "lilac,  blue,  and 
pink,"  and  advised  her  to  keep  to  making  little 
bags  and  baskets,  which  the  kind  friend  gener- 
ously promised  to  assist  in  disposing  of  for  good 
coin  of  the  realm. 

The  mother  who  had  stood  between  her  full- 
grown  daughter  and  the  bed  of  a  dying 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.      9 1 

betrothed,  now  thought  herself  justified  in 
interposing  between  the  woman  of  twenty-seven 
and  the  work  which  she  desired  to  undertake 
for  her  independence.  Mrs.  Martineau  sent 
Harriet  a  stern  letter,  peremptorily  ordering 
her  to  return  home  forthwith.  Bitterly  disap- 
pointed at  seeing  this  chance  of  independence 
in  the  vocation  she  loved  thus  snatched  away, 
Harriet's  sense  of  filial  duty  led  her  to  obey 
her  mother's  commands.  She  went  home  with 
a  heavy  heart ;  and  with  equal  sadness,  her 
little  sister  of  eighteen  turned  out  of  home,  at 
the  same  despotic  bidding,  to  go  a-governessing. 
"  My  mother  received  me  very  tenderly.  She 
had  no  other  idea  at  the  moment  than  that  she 
had  been  doing  her  best  for  my  good." 

Harriet  did  not  return  to  Norwich  entirely 
discouraged.  Resolution  such  as  hers  was  not 
easily  broken  down.  The  British  and  Foreign 
Unitarian  Association  had  advertised  three 
prizes  for  the  best  essays  designed  to  convert 
Roman  Catholics,  Jews  and  Mohammedans 
respectively  to  Unitarianism.  The  sum  offered 
for  each  was  but  small :  ten  guineas  for  the 
Catholic,  fifteen  for  the  Jewish,  and  twenty  for 
the  Mohammedan  essays.  But  it  was  less  the 
money  than  interest  in  the  cause,  and  desire  to 
see  if  she  could  succeed  in  competition  with 
others,  that  led  Harriet  to  form  the  intention  of 
trying  for  all  three  prizes. 


92  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

She  went  to  work  immediately  upon  the 
Catholic  essay,  which  was  to  be  adjudicated  upon 
six  months  earlier  than  the  other  two.  When  it 
was  finished,  she  paid  a  schoolboy,  who  wrote  a 
good  hand,  a  sovereign  that  she  could  ill  spare, 
for  copying  the  essay,  which  was  about  two- 
thirds  the  length  of  this  volume.  The  essays 
were  to  be  superscribed,  as  usual  in  such  competi- 
tions, with  a  motto,  and  the  writer's  name  and 
address  had  to  be  forwarded  in  a  sealed  envelope, 
with  the  same  motto  outside.  In  September, 
1830,  she  received  the  gratifying  news  that 
the  committee  of  adjudication  had  unanimously 
awarded  this  prize  to  her. 

The  other  two  essays  were  commenced  with 
the  spirit  induced  by  this  success.  One  of  them 
was  copied  out  by  a  poor  woman,  the  other  by  a 
schoolmaster.  Harriet  was  careful  even  to  have 
the  two  essays  written  upon  different  sorts  of 
paper,  to  do  them  up  in  differently  shaped  pack- 
ages, and  to  use  separate  kinds  of  wax  and  seals. 

The  sequel  may  be  told,  with  all  the  freshness 
of  the  moment,  in  a  quotation  from  the  Monthly 
Repository  for  May,  1831  :  "We  were  about  to 
review  it  \i.  e.  the  Catholic  essay]  when  the 
somewhat  startling  fact  transpired  of  her  having 
carried  off  the  other  premiums  offered  by  the 
Association's  committee  for  tracts  addressed  to 
the  Mohammedans  and  the  Jews.  We  shall  not 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.       93 

now  stop  to  inquire  how  it  has  happened  that 
our  ministers  would  not  or  could  not  prevent  the 
honor  of  championing  the  cause  of  pure  Chris- 
tianity against  the  whole  theological  world  from 
developing  upon  a  young  lady.  However  that 
may  be,  she  has  won  the  honor  and  well  deserves 
to  wear  it." 

The  essays  were  published  by  the  Unitarian 
Association.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that, 
however  many  ministers  may  have  competed, 
the  Committee  did  select  the  best  papers  offered 
to  their  choice.  The  learning  in  all  is  remarka- 
ble ;  the  freedom  from  sectarian  bitterness,  from 
bigotry,  and  from  the  insolent  assumption  of 
moral  and  religious  superiority,  is  even  more 
striking,  in  such  proselytising  compositions. 

While  waiting  the  result  of  the  prize  compe- 
tition, Harriet  wrote  a  long  story  for  young 
people,  which  she  called  Five  Years  of  Youth. 
It  is  one  of  the  prettiest  and  most  attractive  of 
all  her  writings  of  this  class.  It  has  a  moral 
object,  of  course  —  a  somewhat  similar  one  to 
that  of  Jane  Austen's  Sense  and  Sensibility;  but 
the  warning  against  allowing  sensitiveness  to 
pass  into  sentimentality  is  here  directed  to  girls 
just  budding  into  womanhood;  and  the  punish- 
ment for  the  error  is  not  a  love  disappointment, 
but  the  diminution  of  the  power  of  domestic  and 
social  helpfulness. 


94  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

Harriet's  work  of  this  year,  1830,  comprised 
the  doing  of  much  fancy-work  for  sale,  making 
and  mending  everything  that  she  herself  wore, 
knitting  stockings  even  while  reading,  studying 
a  course  of  German  literature,  and  writing 
for  the  press  the  following  quantity  of  literary 
matter  : —  Traditions  of  Palestine,  a  duodecimo 
volume  of  1 70  printed  pages  ;  Five  Years  of 
Youth,  264  small  octavo  pages ;  three  theo- 
logical essays,  making  a  closely  printed  crown 
octavo  volume  of  300  pages ;  and  fifty-two 
articles  of  various  lengths  in  the  twelve  numbers 
of  the  Monthly  Repository. 

And  now  she  had  touched  the  highest  point 
of  sectarian  fame.  The  chosen  expositor  to  the 
outer  world  of  her  form  of  religion,  and  the 
writer  of  its  favorite  Sunday  School  story-book 
of  the  hour,  she  must  already  have  felt  that  her 
industrions,  resolute  labor  through  many  years 
had  at  last  borne  some  fruit. 

But  the  moment  for  wider  fame  and  a  greater 
usefulness  was  now  at  hand.  In  the  autumn  of 
1827  she  had  read  Mrs.  Marcet's  Conversations 
on  Political  Economy,  and  had  become  aware 
that  the  subject  which  she  had  thought  out  for 
herself,  and  treated  in  her  little  stories  of  The 
Rioters,  and  The  Turn-Out,  was  a  recognized 
science.  She  followed  this  up  by  a  study  of 
Adam  Smith,  and  other  economists,  and  the  idea 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.      95 

then  occurred  to  her  that  it  might  be  possible 
to  illustrate  the  whole  system  of  political  econ- 
omy by  tales  similar  in  style  to  those  she  had 
already  written.  The  thought  had  lain  working 
in  her  mind  for  long,  and,  in  this  autumn  of 
1831,  the  idea  began  to  press  upon  her  as  a 
duty. 

There  were  many  reasons  why  it  was  espe- 
cially necessary  just  then  that  the  people  should 
be  brought  to  think  about  Social  Science.  The 
times  were  bitter  with  the  evils  arising  from 
unwise  laws.  None  knew  better  than  she  did 
how  largely  the  well-being  of  mankind  depends 
upon  causes  which  cannot  be  affected  by  laws. 
It  is  individual  conduct  which  must  make  or  mar 
the  prosperity  of  the  nation.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  laws  are  potent,  both  as  direct  causes  of 
evil  conditions  (and  in  a  less  degree  of  good 
conditions),  and  from  their  educational  influence 
upon  the  people.  Harriet  Martineau  felt  that 
she  had  come  to  see  more  clearly  than  the  masses 
of  her  fellow-countrymen  exactly  how  far  the 
miseries  under  which  English  society  groaned 
were  caused  directly  or  indirectly  by  mischiev- 
ious  legislative  acts.  Moreover,  the  circum- 
stances of  the  moment  made  the  imparting  of 
such  knowledge  not  only  possible,  but  specially 
opportune.  The  Bishops  had  just  thrown  out 
the  Reform  Bill ;  but  no  person  who  watched 


g6  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

the  temper  of  the  time  could  doubt  that  their 
feeble  opposition  would  be  speedily  swept  aside, 
and  that  self-government  was  about  to  be 
extended  to  a  new  class  of  the  people.  Most 
suitable  was  the  occasion,  then,  for  offering 
information  to  these  upon  the  science  and  art 
of  society.  Harriet  was  right  in  her  judgment 
when  she  started  her  project  of  a  series  of  tales 
illustrative  of  Political  Economy,  under  a 
"thorough,  well-considered,  steady  conviction 
that  the  work  was  wanted,  was  even  craved  for 
by  the  popular  mind. 

She  began  to  write  the  first  of  her  stories. 
The  next  business  was  to  find  a  publisher  to 
share  her  belief  that  the  undertaking  would  be 
acceptable  to  the  public.  She  wrote  to  one 
after  another  of  the  great  London  publishers, 
receiving  instant  refusal  to  undertake  the  series 
from  all  but  two  ;  and  even  these  two,  after  giving 
her  a  little  of  that  delusive  hope  which  ends  by 
plunging  the  mind  into  deeper  despair,  joined 
with  their  brethren  in  declining  to  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  scheme. 

Finally,  she  went  to  London  to  try  if  per- 
sonal interviews  would  bring  her  any  better 
success.  She  stayed  in  a  house  attached  to  a 
brewery  (Whitbread's),  belonging  to  a  cousin 
of  hers,  and  situated  near  the  City  Road. 
Thence,  she  tramped  about  through  the  mud 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.       97 

and  sleet  of  December  to  the  publishers'  offices 
day  after  day  for  nearly  three  weeks.  The 
result  was  always  failure.  But  though  she 
returned  to  the  house  worn-out  and  dispirited, 
her  determination  that  the  work  should  be 
done  never  wavered,  and  night  after  night  she 
sat  up  till  long  after  the  brewery  clock  struck 
twelve,  the  pen  pushing  on  in  her  trembling 
hand,  preparing  the  first  two  numbers  of  the 
series,  to  be  ready  for  publication  when  the 
means  should  be  found. 

It  was  the  kind  friend  who  had  helped  her 
before  who  came  to  the  rescue  at  last  at  this 
crisis.  Mr.  W.  J.  Fox  induced  his  brother 
Charles  to  make  her  proposals  for  publishing 
her  series. 

Mr.  Charles  Fox  took  care  to  offer  only  such 
arrangement  as  should  indemnify  him  from  all 
risk  in  the  undertaking.  He  required,  first, 
that  five  hundred  subscribers  should  be  obtained 
for  the  work ;  and  second,  that  he,  the  pub- 
lisher, should  receive  about  seventy-five  per 
cent  of  the  possible  profits.  Hopeless  of  any- 
thing better,  she  accepted  these  hard  terms, 
and  it  was  arranged  that  the  first  number 
should  appear  with  February,  1832. 

The  original  stipulation  as  to  the  time  that 
this  agreement  should  run  was  that  the  engage- 
ment should  be  terminable  by  either  party  at 

4 


98  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

the  end  of  every  five  numbers.  But  a  few 
days  afterwards,  when  Harriet  called  upon  Mr. 
W.  J.  Fox  to  show  him  her  circular  inviting 
subscribers  for  the  series,  she  found  that  Mr. 
Charles  Fox  had  decided  to  say  that  he  would 
not  publish  more  than  two  numbers,  unless  a 
thousand  copies  of  No.  I  were  sold  in  the  first 
fortnight !  This  decision  had  been  arrived  at 
chiefly  in  consequence  of  a  conversation  which 
W.  J.  Fox  had  held  with  James  Mill,  in  which 
the  distinguished  political  economist  had  pro- 
nounced against  the  essential  point  of  the 
scheme — the  narrative  form  —  and  had  advised 
that,  if  the  young  lady  must  try  her  hand  at 
Political  Economy,  she  should  write  it  in  the 
orthodox  didactic  style. 

Mr.  Fox  lived  at  Dalston.  When  Harriet 
left  his  house,  after  receiving  this  unreasonable 
and  discouraging  ultimatum,  she  "set  out  to 
walk  the  four  miles  and  a  half  to  the  Brewery. 
I  could  not  afford  to  ride  more  or  less ;  but> 
weary  already,  I  now  felt  almost  too  ill  to  walk 
at  all.  On  the  road,  not  far  from  Shoreditch,  I 
became  too  giddy  to  stand  without  some  support ; 
and  I  leaned  over  some  dirty  palings,  pretend- 
ing to  look  at  a  cabbage-bed,  but  saying  to  my- 
self as  I  stood  with  closed  eyes,  '  My  book 
will  do  yet.'  ' 

That  very  night  she  wrote  the  long,  thought- 


GRIEF  STRUGGLE  AND  PROGRESS.       99 

ful,  and  collected  preface  to  her  work.  After 
she  had  finished  it  she  sat  over  the  fire  in  her 
bedroom,  in  the  deepest  depression  ;  she  cried, 
with  her  feet  on  the  fender,  till  four  o'clock, 
and  then  she  went  to  bed,  and  cried  there  till 
six,  when  she  fell  asleep.  But  if  any  persons 
suppose  that  because  the  feminine  temperament 
finds  a  relief  in  tears,  the  fact  argues  weakness, 
they  will  be  instructed  by  hearing  that  she 
was  up  by  half-past  eight,  continuing  her  work 
as  firmly  resolved  as  ever  that  it  should  be 
published. 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE  work  which  had  struggled  into  printed 
existence  with  such  extreme  difficulty  raised  its 
author  at  a  bound  to  fame.  Ten  days  after  the 
publication  of  the  first  number,  Charles  Fox 
sent  Harriet  word  that  not  only  were  the  fif- 
teen hundred  copies  which  formed  the  first  edi- 
tion all  sold  off,  but  he  had  such  orders  in  hand 
that  he  proposed  to  print  another  five  thousand 
at  once.  The  people  had  taken  up  the  work 
instantly.  The  press  followed,  instead  of  lead- 
ing the  public  in  this  instance  ;  but  it,  too,  was 
enthusiastic  in  praise,  both  of  the  scheme  and 
the  execution  of  the  stories. 

More  than  one  publisher  who  had  previously 
rejected  the  series  made  overtures  for  it  now. 
Its  refusal,  as  they  saw,  had  been  one  of  those 
striking  blunders  of  which  literary  history  has 
not  a  few  to  tell.  But  there  is  no  occasion  to 
cry  out  about  the  stupidity  of  publishers. 
They  can  judge  well  how  far  a  work  written 
on  lines  already  popular  will  meet  the  demand 


GREAT  SUCCESS.  IOI 

of  the  market ;  but  an  entirely  original  idea,  or 
the  work  of  an  original  writer,  is  a  mere  lottery. 
There  is  no  telling  how  the  public  will  take  it 
until  it  has  been  tried.  Publishers  put  into  a 
good  many  such  lotteries,  and  often  lose  by 
them  ;  then  nothing  more  is  heard  of  the  mat- 
ter. But  the  cases  where  they  decline  a  spec- 
ulation which  afterwards  turns  out  to  have  been 
a  good  one  are  never  forgotten.  Still,  the  fact 
remains  that  it  was  Harriet  Martineau  alone 
who  saw  that  the  people  needed  her  work,  and 
whose  wonderful  courage  and  resolution  brought 
it  out  for  the  public  to  accept. 

Her  success  grew,  as  an  avalanche  gains  in 
volume,  by  its  own  momentum.  Besides  the 
publishers'  communications  she  had  letters, 
and  pamphlets,  and  blue-books,  and  magazines 
forwarded  to  her  in  piles,  in  order  that  she 
might  include  the  advocacy  of  the  senders' 
hobbies  in  her  series.  One  day  the  postmaster 
sent  her  a  message  that  she  must  let  a  barrow 
be  fetched  for  her  share  of  the  mail,  as  it  was 
too  bulky  to  come  in  any  other  way.  Lord 
Brougham  declared,  that  it  made  him  tear  his 
hair  to  think  that  the  Society  for  the  Diffusion 
of  Knowledge,  which  he  had  instituted  for  the 
very  purpose  of  doing  such  work  as  she  was 
undertaking,  seemed  not  to  have  a  man  in  it 
with  as  much  sense  of  what  was  wanted  as  this 


102  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

little  deaf  girl  at  Norwich.  The  public  interest 
in  the  work  was,  perhaps,  heightened  by  the 
fact  that  so  ignorant  was  everybody  of  her  per- 
sonality, that  this  description  of  Brougham's 
passed  muster.  But  she  was  not  little,  and  she 
was  now  twenty-nine  years  of  age. 

She  stayed  in  Norwich,  going  on  writing 
hard,  until  the  November  of  1832,  by  which 
time  eight  numbers  of  her  series  had  appeared. 
Then  she  went  to  London,  taking  lodgings 
with  an  old  servant  of  Mrs.  Martineau's,  who 
lived  in  Conduit  street.  In  the  course  of  a 
few  months,  however,  Mrs.  Martineau  settled 
herself  in  London,  and  her  daughter  again 
resided  with  her,  in  a  house  in  Fludyer  street, 
Westminster. 

The  purely  literary  success  which  she  had 
hitherto  enjoyed  was  now  turned  into  a  social 
triumph.  However  she  might  strive  against 
being  lionized  she  could  not  avoid  the  attentions 
and  honors  that  were  poured  upon  her.  It  is 
little  to  say  that  all  the  distinguished  people  in 
town  hastened  to  know  her;  it  was  even  con- 
sidered to  give  distinction  to  a  party  if  she 
could  be  secured  to  attend  it.  Literary  celebri- 
ties, titled  people,  and  members  of  Parliament, 
competed  for  the  small  space  of  time  that  she 
could  spare  for  society. 

This  was  not  very  much,  for  the  work  she  had 


THE  GREAT  SUCCESS.  103 

undertaken  was  heavy  enough  to  absorb  all  her 
energies.  She  had  engaged  to  produce  one  of 
her  stories  every  month.  They  were  issued  in 
small  paper-covered  volumes  of  from  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  pages 
of  print.  She  began  publication  with  only  two 
or  three  numbers  ready  written.  Thus,  to  keep 
on  with  her  series,  she  had  to  write  one  whole 
number  every  month.  It  would  have  been  hard 
work  had  it  been  simple  story-telling,  had  she 
been  merely  imaginatively  reproducing  scenes 
and  characters  from  her  past  experience,  or 
writing  according  to  her  fancy.  But  it  was,  in 
fact,  a  much  more  difficult  labor  upon  which  she 
was  engaged.  Her  scheme  required  that  she 
should  embody  every  shade  of  variety  of  the 
human  character ;  that  her  scenes  should  be  laid 
in  different  parts  of  the  world,  with  topography 
and  surroundings  appropriate  to  the  story ;  and 
that  the  governments  and  social  state  of  all  these 
various  places  should  be  accurately  represented. 
In  addition  to  all  this  she  had  to  lay  down  for 
each  tale  the  propositions  which  had  to  be  illus- 
trated in  it ;  to  assure  herself  that  she  clearly 
saw  the  truth  and  the  bearings  of  every  doctrine 
of  political  economy  ;  and  then  to  work  into  a 
connected  fiction  in  a  concrete  form  the  abstract 
truths  of  the  science  —  representing  them  as 
exemplified  in  the  lives  of  individuals. 


104  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

Political  economy  treats  of  the  production, 
distribution  and  consumption,  or  use,  of  all  the 
material  objects  of  human  desire,  which  are 
called  by  the  general  name  of  wealth.  Thus,  it 
is  a  subject  which  concerns  every  one  of  us  in 
our  daily  lives,  and  not  merely  a  matter  belong- 
ing (as  its  name  unfortunately  leads  many  to 
suppose)  entirely  to  the  province  of  the  legisla- 
tor. The  great  mass  of  mankind  are  producers 
of  wealth.  All  are  necessarily  consumers  — 
for  the  bare  maintenance  of  existence  demands 
the  consumption  of  wealth.  The  well-being  of 
the  community  depends  upon  the  industry  and 
skill  with  which  wealth  is  produced ;  upon  the 
distribution  of  it  in  such  a  manner  as  to  encour- 
age future  production  ;  and  upon  the  consump- 
tion of  it  with  due  regard  to  the  claims  of  the 
future.  It  is  individuals  who,  as  the  business  of 
common  life,  produce,  exchange,  divide  and  con- 
sume wealth  ;  it  is,  therefore,  each  individual's 
business  to  comprehend  the  science  which  treats 
of  his  daily  life.  A  science  is  nothing  but  a 
collection  of  facts,  considered  in  their  relation- 
ship to  each  other.  Miss  Martineau's  plan,  in 
her  series,  was  strictly  what  I  have  indicated 
as  being  always  her  aim  ;  namely,  to  deduce 
from  an  abstract  science  rules  for  daily  life  - — 
the  secondary,  practical  or  concrete  science.  It 
was  the  union  of  a  scientific  basis  with  practical 


THE   GREAT  SUCCESS.  105 

morals  that  made  this  subject  attractive  to  her 
mind,  and  led  her  (in  the  words  of  her  preface,) 
to  "propose  to  convey  the  leading  truths  of 
political  economy,  as  soundly,  as  systematically, 
as  clearly  and  faithfully,  as  the  utmost  painstak- 
ing and  the  strongest  attachment  to  the  subject 
will  enable  us  to  do." 

She  did  her  work  very  methodically.  Having 
first  noted  down  her  own  ideas  on  the  branch 
of  the  subject  before  her,  she  read  over  the 
chapters  relating  to  it  in  the  various  standard 
works  that  she  had  at  hand,  making  references 
as  she  read.  The  next  thing  to  do  was  to  draw 
out  as  clearly  and  concisely  as  possible  the 
truths  that  she  had  to  illustrate  ;  this  "  summary 
of  principles,"  as  she  called  it,  was  affixed  to 
each  tale.  By  this  time  she  would  see  in  what 
part  of  the  world,  and  amongst  what  class  of 
people,  the  principles  in  question  were  operat- 
ing most  manifestly ;  and  if  this  consideration 
dictated  the  choice  of  a  foreign  background, 
the  next  thing  to  be  done  was  to  get  from  a 
library  works  of  travel  and  topography,  and 
to  glean  hints  from  them  for  local  coloring. 

The  material  thus  all  before  her  in  sheets  of 
notes,  she  reduced  it  to  chapters  ;  sketching 
out  the  characters  of  her  dramatis  persona, 
their  action,  and  the  features  of  the  scenes, 
and  also  the  political  economy  which  they  had 


106  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

to  convey  either  by  exemplification  or  by 
conversation.  Finally,  she  paged  her  paper. 
Then  "  the  story  went  off  like  a  letter.  I  did 
it,"  she  says,  "  as  I  write  letters ;  never  alter- 
ing the  expression  as  it  came  fresh  from  my 
brain." 

I  have  seen  the  original  manuscript  of  one  of 
the  Political  Economy  Tales.  It  shows  the 
statement  just  quoted  to  be  entirely  accurate. 
The  writing  has  evidently  been  done  as  rapidly 
as  the  hand  could  move ;  every  word  that  will 
admit  of  it  is  contracted,  to  save  time.  "  Socy.," 
"opporty., "  "agst,"  "abt.,"  "independce.," 
these  were  amongst  the  abbreviations  submitted 
to  the  printer's  intelligence ;  not  to  mention 
commoner  and  more  simple  words,  such  as  wh., 
wd.,  and  the  like.  The  calligraphy,  though 
very  readable,  has  a  somewhat~slipshod  look. 
Thus,  there  is  every  token  of  extremely  rapid 
composition.  Yet  the  corrections  on  the  MS. 
are  few  and  trifling  ;  the  structure  of  a  sentence 
is  never  altered,  and  there  are  but  seldom 
emendations  even  of  principal  words.  The 
manuscript  is  written  (in  defiance  of  law  and 
order)  on  both  sides  of  the  paper ;  the  latter 
being  quarto,  of  the  size  now  commonly  called 
sermon  paper,  but,  in  those  pre-envelope  ages, 
it  was  letter  paper. 

Her  course  of  life  in  London  was  as  follows : 


THE  GREAT  SUCCESS.  IO/ 

she  wrote  in  the  morning,  rising,  and  making 
her  own  coffee  at  seven,  and  going  to  work 
immediately  after  breakfast  until  two.  From 
two  till  four  she  saw  visitors.  Having  an  im- 
mense acquaintance,  she  declined  undertaking 
to  make  morning  calls ;  but  people  might  call 
upon  her  any  afternoon.  She  was  charged  with 
vanity  about  this  arrangement ;  but,  with  the 
work  on  her  hands  and  the  competition  for  her 
company,  she  really  could  not  do  differently. 
Still,  Sydney  Smith  suggested  a  better  plan; 
he  told  her  she  should  "hire  a  carriage,  and 
engage  an  inferior  authoress  to  go  round  in  it 
to  drop  the  cards!"  After  any  visitors  left, 
she  went  out  for  her  daily  "duty  walk,"  and 
returned  to  glance  over  the  newspapers,  and  to 
dress  for  dinner.  Almost  invariably  she  dined 
out,  her  host's  or  some  other  friend's  carriage 
being  commonly  sent  to  fetch  her.  One  or  two 
evening  parties  would  conclude  the  day,  unless 
the  literary  pressure  was  extreme,  in  which  case 
she  would  sometimes  write  letters  after  return- 
ing home.  During  the  whole  time  of  writing 
her  series,  she  was  satisfied  with  from  five  to 
six  hours'  sleep  out  of  the  twenty-four;  and 
though  she  was  not  a  teetotaller,  but  drank 
wine  at  dinner,  still  she  took  no  sort  of 
stimulant  to  help  her  in  her  work. 
This  was  the  course  of  life  that  a  woman,  of 


108  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

no  extraordinary  physical  strength,  was  able  to 
maintain  with  but  little  cessation  or  interval  for 
two  years.  When  I  look  at  the  thirty-four  lit- 
tle volumes  which  she  produced  in  less  than  as 
many  months,  and  when  I  consider  the  character 
of  their  contents,  I  am  bound  to  say  that  I  con- 
sider the  feat  of  mere  industry  unparalleled, 
within  my  knowledge. 

The  Illustrations  of  Political  Economy  are 
plainly  and  inevitably  damaged,  as  works  of 
art,  by  the  fact  that  they  are  written  to  convey 
definite  lessons.  The  fetters  in  which  the  story 
moves  are  necessarily  far  closer  than  in  the  or- 
dinary "novel  with  a  purpose;"  for  here  the 
object  is  not  merely  to  show  the  results,  upon 
particular  characters  or  upon  individual  careers, 
of  a  certain  course  of  conduct,  and  thence  to 
argue  that  in  similar  special  circumstances  all 
persons  would  experience  similar  consequences  : 
but  the  task  here  is  to  show  in  operation  those 
springs  of  the  social  machinery  by  which  we 
are  all,  generally  quite  unconsciously,  guided  in 
our  every-day  actions,  the  natural  laws  by  which 
all  our  lives  are  inevitably  governed.  To  do  this, 
the  author  was  compelled  to  select  scenes  from 
common  life,  and  to  eschew  the  striking  and  the 
unusual.  Again,  it  was  absolutely  necessary 
that  much  of  the  doctrine  which  had  to  be 
taught  must  be  conveyed  by  dialogue;  not 


THE   GREAT  SUCCESS.  109 

because  it  would  not  be  possible  to  exemplify  in 
action  every  theory  of  political  economy  —  for  all 
those  theories  have  originally  been  derived  from 
observation  of  the  facts  of  human  history  —  but 
because  no  such  a  small  group  of  persons  and 
such  a  limited  space  of  time  as  must  be  taken  to 
tell  a  stoty  about,  can  possibly  display  the  whole 
consequences  of  many  of  the  laws  of  social 
science.  The  results  of  our  daily  actions  as 
members  of  society  are  not  so  easily  visible  as 
they  would  be  if  we  could  wholly  trace  them  out 
amongst  our  own  acquaintances  or  in  our  own 
careers.  The  consequences  of  our  own  conduct, 
good  or  bad,  must  come  round 'to  us,  it  is  true,  but 
often  only  as  members  of  the  body  politic.  Thus, 
they  are  very  often  in  a  form  as  little  distin- 
guishable to  the  uninstructed  mind  as  we  may 
suppose  it  would  be  comprehensible  to  the  brain, 
if  the  organs  of  the  body  had  a  separate  con- 
sciousness, that  it  was  responsible  for  its  own 
aches  arising  from  the  disturbance  of  the  liver 
consequent  upon  intemperance.  But  in  a  tale  it 
is  obviously  impossible  to  show  in  action  any 
more  of  the  working  of  events  than  can  be  ex- 
emplified in  one  or  two  groups  of  persons,  all 
of  whom  must  be,  however  slightly,  personally 
associated.  The  larger  questions  and  principles 
at  issue  must  be  expounded  and  argued  out  in 
conversations,  or  else  by  means  of  an  entire  lapse 


110  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

from  the  illustrative  to  the  didactic  method. 
Now,  as  ordinary  people  do  not  go  about  the 
world  holding  long  conversations  or  delivering 
themselves  of  dissertations  on  political  economy, 
it  is  clear  that  the  introduction  of  such  talks 
and  preachments  detracts  from  the  excellence  of 
the  story  as  a  work  of  art.  Still  less  artistic- 
ally admirable  does  the  fiction  become  when  a 
lesson  is  introduced  as  a  separate  argument 
intruded  into  the  course  of  the  tale. 

Political  economy  as  a  science  was  then  but 
fifty  years  old.  Adam  Smith  had  first  promul- 
gated its  fundamental  truths  in  his  immortal 
Wealth  of  Nations,  in  1776.  Malthus,  Ricardo, 
and  one  or  two  others  had  since  added  to  the 
exposition  of  the  facts  and  the  relationship 
between  the  facts  (that  is  to  say,  the  science) 
of  social  arrangements.  But  it  was  not  then  — 
nor  is  it,  indeed,  yet,  in  an  age  when  the  great 
rewards  of  physical  research  have  attracted 
into  that  field  nearly  all  the  best  intellects  for 
science  of  the  time  —  a  complete  body  of 
reasoned  truths.  Some  of  the  positions  laid 
down  by  all  the  earlier  writers  are  now  dis- 
credited ;  others  are  questioned.  In  a  few  pas- 
sages, accordingly,  these  tales  teach  theories 
which  would  now  require  revision.  It  must  be 
added  at  once  that  these  instances  are  few  and 
far  between.  The  reasoning,  the  grasp  of  the 


THE  GREA  T  SUCCESS.  1 1 1 

facts  of  social  life  and  the  logical  acumen  with 
which  they  are  dissected  and  explained  in  these 
tales  are,  generally  speaking,  nearly  perfect, 
and  therefore  such  as  all  competent  students  of 
the  subject  would  at  this  day  indorse.  The 
slips  in  exposition  of  the  science  as  it  was  then 
understood  are  exceedingly  rare.  Greater  clear- 
ness, and  more  precision,  and  better  arrange- 
ment could  hardly  have  been  attained  had  years 
been  spent  upon  the  work,  in  revising,  correct- 
ing, and  re-copying,  instead  of  each  "  Illustra- 
tion" being  written  in  a  month,  and  sent  to 
press  with  hardly  a  phrase  amended. 

The  accuracy  and  excellence  in  the  presenta- 
tion of  the  science  were  admitted  at  once  by 
the  highest  authorities.  Mr.  James  Mill  early 
made  honorable  amends  for  his  previous  doubts 
as  to  the  possibility  of  Miss  Martineau's  suc- 
cess. VVhately  and  Malthus  expressed  their 
admiration  of  the  work.  Lord  Brougham 
called  upon  her,  and  engaged  her  pen  to  illus- 
trate the  necessity  for  reform  in  the  treatment 
of  the  social  canker  of  pauperism.  The  Gur- 
neys,  and  the  rest  of  the  Quaker  members  of 
Parliament  got  Mrs.  Fry  to  make  an  appoint- 
ment to  ask  Miss  Martineau's  advice  as  to  their 
action  in  the  House  on  the  same  subject,  when 
it  was  ripe  for  legislation.  The  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer  (Lord  Althorp)  even  sent  his 


1 1 2  HARRIET  MARTINEA  U. 

private  secretary  (Mr.  Drummond,  the  author 
of  the  world-famous  phrase  "  Property  has  its 
duties  as  well  as  its  rights ")  to  supply  Miss 
Martineau  with  information  to  enable  her  to 
prepare  the  public  for  the  forthcoming  Budget. 
The  chairman  of  the  Royal  Commission  on 
Excise  Taxes  gave  her  the  manuscript  of  the 
evidence  taken,  and  the  draft  of  the  report  of 
the  Commission,  before  they  were  formally 
presented  to  the  Ministers  of  the  Crown  (a 
thing  without  precedent ! ),  in  order  that  she 
might  use  the  facts  to  pave  the  way  for  the 
reception  of  the  report  in  the  House  and  by 
the  people.  The  whole  public  of  male  stu- 
dents of  her  science  paid  her  work  what  men 
consider  in  their  unconscious  insolence  to  be 
the  highest  compliment  that  they  can  pay  a 
woman's  work  :  the  milder-mannered  ones  said 
she  had  "a  masculine  intelligence";  the 
stronger  characters  went  further,  and  declared 
that  the  books  were  so  good  that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  believe  them  to  be  written  by  a  woman. 
Newspaper  critics  not  infrequently  attributed 
them  to  Lord  Brougham,  then  Lord  Chancel- 
lor ;  that  versatile  and  (at  the  moment)  most 
popular  politician  was  supposed  either  to  write 
them  all  himself,  or  to  supply  their  main 
features  for  the  inferior  mind  to  throw  into 
shape. 


THE  GREAT  SUCCESS,  113 

While  statesmen,  politicians,  thinkers,  and 
students  were  thus  praising  the  clearness  and 
appreciating  the  power  of  the  work  as  political 
economy,  the  general  public  eagerly  bought 
and  read  the  books,  both  for  their  bearing  on 
the  legislative  questions  of  the  day  and  for 
their  vividness  and  interest  as  stories.  And 
indeed,  they  richly  deserved  to  be  read  as 
works  of  fiction.  Remembering  the  limita- 
tions to  their  artistic  excellence  previously 
adverted  to,  they  may  be  with  justice  praised 
for  most  of  the  essential  features  of  good 
novel-writing. 

The  characters  are  the  strongest  point. 
Clearly  individualized,  consistently  carried  out, 
thinking,  speaking,  and  acting  in  accordance 
with  their  nature,  the  characters  are  always 
personages  ;  and  some  of  them  must  live  long 
in  the  memories  of  those  who  have  made  their 
acquaintance.  The  sterner  virtues  in  Cousin 

Marshall,  in  Lady  F ,  in  Ella  of  Garveloch, 

and  in  Mary  Kay,  are  no  less  clearly  and  attrac- 
tively depicted  than  the  milder  and  more  pass- 
ive ones  in  the  patience  of  Christian  Vanderput, 
in  the  unconscious  devotion  to  duty  of  Nicholas, 
in  the  industry  and  hopefulness  of  Frank  and 
Ellen  Castle,  in  the  wifely  love  and  agony  of 
Hester  Morrison,  in  the  quiet  public  spirit  of 
Charles  Guyon,  in  the  proved  patriotism  of  the 


114  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

Polish  exiles,  and  in  a  dozen  other  instances. 
Her  feelings  and  her  spirit  are  at  home  in 
depicting  these  virtues  of  the  character  ;  but 
none  the  less  does  she  well  succeed  in  realizing 
both  vice  and  folly.  Her  real  insight  into  char- 
acter was  quite  remarkable  ;  as  Dr.  Martineau 
observed  to  me,  when  he  said,  "  My  sister's 
powers  of  observation  were  extraordinary."  If, 
on  the  one  hand,  her  deafness  often  prevented 
her  from  appreciating  the  delicacies  and  the 
chances  of  verbal  expression  (which  really  re- 
veal so  much  of  the  nature)  in  those  around 
her,  so  that  she  was  apt  to  draw  sharper  lines 
than  most  people  do  between  the  sheep  and  the 
goats  in  her  estimation  ;  on  the  other  hand,  she 
saw  more  than  those  whose  minds  are  distracted 
by  sounds,  the  light  and  play  of  the  countenance, 
and  the  indications  of  character  in  trivial  actions. 
The  excellence  of  her  character-drawing  in  these 
novels  gives  abundant  evidence  that  the  dis- 
qualification was  more  than  counterbalanced  by 
the  cultivation  of  the  other  faculty. 

The  unconsciousness  of  her  mental  analysis 
is  at  once  its  greatest  charm  and  the  best  token 
of  its  truthfulness.  Florence  Nightingale  real- 
ized how  fully  this  was  so  with  reference  to 
the  finer  qualities  of  morals.  In  her  tribute  to 
Harriet  Martineau's  memory  Miss  Nightingale 
justly  observes  :  — 


THE  GREAT  SUCCESS.  115 

In  many  parts  of  her  Illustrations  of  Political 
Economy  —  for  example,  the  death  of  a  poor 
drinking-woman,  "Mrs  Kay," — what  higher 
religious  feeling  (or  one  should  rather  say  in- 
stinct) could  there  be  ?  To  the  last  she  had 
religious  feeling  —  in  the  sense  of  good  working 
out  of  evil  into  a  supreme  wisdom  penetrating 
and  moulding  the  whole  universe ;  into  the 
natural  subordination  of  intellect  and  intellect- 
ual purposes  and  of  intellectual  self  to  purposes 
of  good,  even  were  these  merely  the  small  pur- 
poses of  social  or  domestic  life. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  human  character  in 
her  delineation  of  the  bad  qualities,  she  as  in- 
stinctively seeks  and  finds  causes  for  the  errors 
and  evils  of  the  minds  she  displays.  Foolish- 
ness, and  ignorance,  and  poverty  are  traced, 
entirely  without  affectation  and  "  cant,"  in  their 
action  as  misleading  influences  in  the  lives  of 
the  poor  sinners  and  sufferers. 

The  stories  told  in  the  Illustrations  are  fre- 
quently very  interesting.  In  this  respect,  there 
is  a  notable  advance  in  the  course  of  the  series. 
The  earlier  tales,  such  as  Life  in  the  Wilds  and 
Brooke  Farm,  are  not  to  be  compared,  as  mere 
stories,  with  even  those  written  later  on  by  only 
eight  or  nine  stirring  eventful  months,  such  as 
Ireland  and  The  Loom  and  the  Lugger.  Still 
better  are  the  latest  tales.  The  Illustrations 
of  Taxation  and  Illustrations  of  Poor-Laws  and 


1 1 6  HA  RRIE  T  MAR  TINEA  U. 

Paupers  are,  despite  the  unattractiveness  of 
their  topics,  of  the  highest  interest.  The  Parish, 
The  Town,  The  Jcrseymen  Meeting,  The  Jersey- 
men  Parting,  and  The  Scholars  of  Arnside,  would 
assuredly  be  eagerly  read  by  any  lover  of  fiction 
almost  without  consciousness  that  there  was 
anything  in  the  pages  except  a  deeply  interest- 
ing story. 

Archbishop  Whately  pronounced  The  Parish 
the  best  thing  she  had  done.  Vanderpnt  and 
Snook,  the  story  dealing  with  bills  of  exchange, 
was  the  favorite  with  Mr.  Hallam.  Lord  Broug- 
ham, on  whose  engagement  she  did  the  five 
"  Poor-Law  "  stories,  wrote  most  enthusiastically 
that  they  surpassed  all  the  expections  that  her 
previous  works  had  led  him  to  form.  Coleridge 
told  her  that  he  "  looked  eagerly  every  month  " 
for  the  new  number ;  and  Lord  Durham  re- 
counted to  her  how  one  evening  he  was  at 
Kensington  Palace  (where  the  widowed  Duch- 
ess of  Kent  was  then  residing,  and  devoting 
herself  to  that  education  which  has  made  her 
daughter  the  best  sovereign  of  her  dynasty), 
when  the  little  Princess  Victoria  came  running 
from  an  inner  room  to  show  her  mother,  with 
delight,  the  advertisement  of  the  "  Taxation  " 
tales  ;  for  the  young  Princess  was  being  allowed 
to  read  the  Illustrations,  and  found  them  her 
most  fascinating  story-books. 


THE  GREAT  SUCCESS.  II 7 

Harriet's  experiences,  however,  were  not  all 
quite  so  agreeable.  Mrs.  Marcet,  who  "had  a 
great  opinion  of  great  people  —  of  people  great 
by  any  distinction,  ability,  office,  birth,  and  what 
not  —  and  innocently  supposed  her  own  taste  to 
be  universal,"  formed  a  warm  and  generous 
friendship  for  Miss  Martineau,  and  used  to  de- 
light in  carrying  to  her  the  "  homages  "  of  the 
savants  and  the  aristocratic  readers  of  the 
Illustrations  in  France,  where  Mrs.  Marcet's 
acquaintance  was  extensive.  She  one  day  told 
Miss  Martineau,  with  much  delight,  that  Louis 
Philippe,  the  then  King  of  the  French,  had 
ordered  a  copy  of  the  series  for  each  member  of 
his  family,  and  had  also  requested  M.  Guizot  to 
have  the  stories  translated,  and  introduced  into 
the  French  national  schools.  This  was  pres- 
ently confirmed  by  a  large  order  from  France 
for  copies,  and  by  a  note  from  the  officially- 
appointed  translator  requesting  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau to  favor  him  with  some  particulars  of 
her  personal  history,  for  introduction  into  a 
periodical  which  was  being  issued  by  the  Gov- 
ernment for  the  promotion  of  education  amongst 
the  French  people.  The  writer  added  that  M. 
Guizot  wished  to  have  Miss  Martineau's  series 
specially  noticed  in  connection  with  her  own 
personality,  since  she  afforded  the  first  instance 
on  record  of  a  woman  who  was  not  born  to 


Il8  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

sovereign  station  affecting  practical  legislation 
otherwise  than  through  a  man. 

At  the  very  time  that  she  received  this  flat- 
tering note,  Harriet  was  engaged  in  writing  her 
twelfth  number,  French  Wines  and  Politics. 
The  topic  treated  in  this  story  is  that  of  value, 
with  the  subsidiary  questions  relating  to  prices 
and  their  fluctuations.  The  tale  takes  up  the 
period  of  the  great  French  Revolution,  and  shows 
how  the  fortunes  of  certain  wine-merchants  near 
Bordeaux,  and  of  the  head  of  the  Paris  house  in 
connection,  were  affected  by  the  course  of  that 
great  social  convulsion.  The  scene  was  unques- 
tionably happily  chosen.  The  circumstances 
were  abnormal,  it  is  true  ;  but  the  causes  which 
created  such  vast  fluctuations  in  prices,  and  such 
changes  in  the  value  of  goods,  were,  in  fact, 
only  the  same  fundamental  causes  as  are  always 
at  the  basis  of  such  alterations  in  price  and 
value  ;  it  was  merely  the  rapidity  and  violence 
of  the  movement  which  were  peculiar.  The 
story  was  well  put  together ;  and  the  "  Illus- 
tration "'was  in  every  way  admirable  for  every 
possible  desirable  object,  except  only  for  the 
one  of  being  pleasant  to  the  ruling  powers  in 
the  France  of  1833. 

Harriet  Martineau's  constant  sympathy  with 
democracy,  her  hatred  of  oppression  and  tyranny, 
and  her  aversion  to  class  government,  all  became 


THE   GRE/{T  SUCCESS.  1 19 

conspicuous  in  this  story.  "The  greatest  happi- 
ness of  the  greatest  number"  of  mankind  was 
her  ideal  of  the  aim  of  legislation  ;  and  she  well 
knew,  as  Bentham  saw,  that  only  the  democratic 
form  of  government  can  produce  a  body  of  laws 
approximating  to  this  ideal.  Her  efforts  were 
constant,  therefore,  to  prepare  the  people  to 
demand,  and  to  afterwards  wisely  use,  the  power 
of  governing  themselves.  Now,  though  Louis 
Philippe  was  the  citizen-king,  though  he  was  the 
head  of  a  republican  monarchy,  though  his  leg- 
islative chamber  rejected  in  that  same  year  a 
ministerial  document  because  it  spoke  of  the 
people  as  "subjects,"  yet  it  may  be  easily 
understood  that  this  king  and  his  ministers  did 
not  care  to  stimulate  the  democratic  feeling  of 
the  nation  any  more  than  they  found  inevitable. 
The  whole  tone  of  this  work  would  be  objection- 
able to  them  ;  and  a  dozen  passages  might  be 
readily  quoted  to  show  why  royal  and  aristocratic 
rulers  were  little  likely  to  aid  its  circulation 
amongst  the  people  whom  they  governed.. 
Here,  for  instance,  is  a  portion  of  the  passage 
on  the  storming  of  the  Bastile  :  — 

The  spectacles  of  a  life-time  were  indeed  to  be 
beheld  within  the  compass  of  this  one  scene.  .  . 
Here  were  the  terrors  which  sooner  or  later  chill 
the  marrow  of  despotism,  and  the  stern  joy  with 
which  its  retribution  fires  the  heart  of  the  patriot. 


120  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

Here  were  the  servants  of  tyranny  quailing 
before  the  glance  of  the  people.  .  .  .  The  towers 
of  palaces  might  be  seen  afar,  where  princes 
were  quaking  at  this  final  assurance  of  the 
downfall  of  their  despotic  sway,  knowing  that  the 
assumed  sanctity  of  royalty  was  being  wafted 
away  with  every  puff  of  smoke  which  spread 
itself  over  the  sky,  and  their  irresponsibility  melt- 
ing in  fires  lighted  by  the  hands  which  they  had 
vainly  attempted  to  fetter,  and  blown  by  the 
breath  which  they  had  imagined  they  could  stifle. 
They  had  denied  the  birth  of  that  liberty  whose 
baptism  in  fire  and  in  blood  was  now  being  cele- 
brated in  a  many-voiced  chant  with  which  the 
earth  should  ring  for  centuries.  Some  from 
other  lands  were  already  present  to  hear  and 
join  in  jt;  some  free  Britons  to  aid,  some  won- 
dering slaves  of  other  despots  to  slink  home- 
wards with  whispered  tidings  of  its  import ;  for 
from  that  day  to  this,  the  history  of  the  fall  of 
the  Bastile  has  been  told  as  a  secret  in  the  vine- 
yards of  Portugal,  and  among  the  groves  of  Spain, 
and  in  the  patriotic  conclaves  of  the  youth  of 
Italy,  while  it  has  been  loudly  and  joyfully  pro- 
claimed from  one  end  to  the  other  of  Great 
Britain,  till  her  lisping  children  are  familiar  with 
the  tale. 

Besides  such  passages  as  this,  scarcely  likely 
to  please  the  French  king,  there  was  the  special 
ground  for  his  objection  that  his  immediate 
ancestor,  Egalite,  was  introduced  into  the  story, 
and  depicted  in  no  favorable  light  his  efforts  to 
inflame  the  popular  violence  for  his  selfish  ends, 


THE  GREAT  SUCCESS.  121 

his  hypocrisy,  his  cowardice,  and  so  on,  being 
held  up  to  contempt.  Mrs.  Marcet,  when  she 
read  all  this,  came  breathless  to  Harriet  Marti- 
neau  to  ask  her  how  she  could  have  made  such 
a  blunder  as  to  write  a  story  that  plainly  would 
(and,  of  course,  in  fact,  did)  put  an  end  to  the 
official  patronage  of  her  series  in  France,  and 
would  destroy  for  ever  any  hopes  that  she  might 
have  entertained  of  being  received  at  the  Court 
of  Louis  Philippe  ?  Greatly  surprised  was  the 
good  lady  at  finding  Harriet's  reverence  for  that 
monarch  so  limited  in  extent.  She  replied  to 
her  kind  friend  that  she  "wrote  with  a  view  to 
the  people,  and  especially  the  most  suffering  of 
them ;  and  the  crowned  heads  must  for  once  take 
their  chance  for  their  feelings." 

At  the  very  moment  that  Mrs.  Marcet's 
remonstrance  was  made,  Miss  Martineau  was 
writing  a  story  of  a  character  likely  to  be  even 
more  distasteful  to  the  Emperer  of  Russia  than 
this  one  to  the  King  of  the  French.  She  had 
found  it  difficult  to  illustrate  the  theory  of  the 
currency  in  a  story  treating  of  the  existence  of 
civilized  people.  The  only  situation  in  which 
she  could  find  persons,  above  the  rank  of  sav- 
ages, transacting  their  exchanges  by  aid  of  a 
kind  of  money  which  made  the  business  only 
one  remove  from  bartering,  was  amongst  the 
Polish  exiles  in  Siberia.  She  therefore  wrote 


122  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

The  Charmed  Sea,  a  story  founded  upon  the 
terrible  facts  of  the  lives  of  the  exiled  Poles 
"in  the  depths  of  Eastern  Siberia,"  working 
in  "a  silver-mine  near  the  western  extremity 
of  the  Daourian  Range,  and  within  hearing  of 
the  waters  of  the  Baikal  when  its  storms  were 
fiercest."  Had  the  melancholy  tale  been  writ- 
ten in  the  service  of  the  Poles,  it  could  not 
have  been  more  moving.  So  powerful,  and 
interesting  was  it,  indeed,  that  the  criticism  of 
the  Edinburgh  Review  was  that  the  fiction  too 
entirely  overpowered  the  political  economy. 
The  arrival  of  The  Charmed  Sea  in  Russia 
changed  the  favorable  opinion  which  the  Czar 
had  previously  been  so  kind  as  to  express  about 
the  Illustrations.  He  had  been  purchasing 
largely  of  the  French  translation  of  the  series 
for  distribution  amongst  his  people.  But  now 
he  issued  a  proclamation  ordering  every  copy 
in  Russia  of  every  number  to  be  immediately 
burnt,  and  forbidding  the  author  ever  to  set 
foot  upon  his  soil.  Austria,  equally  concerned 
in  the  Polish  business,  followed  this  example, 
and  a  description  of  Harriet  Martineau-'s  per- 
son was  hung  in  the  appointed  places,  amidst 
the  lists  of  the  proscribed,  all  over  Russia, 
Austria,  and  Austrian-Italy.  Despots,  at  least, 
had  no  admiration  for  her  politics. 

The  only  important  adverse  criticism  in  the 


THE  GREAT  SUCCESS.  123 

press  appeared  in  the  Quarterly  Review*  The 
reviewer  objected  impartially  to  every  one  of 
the  twelve  stories  which  had  then  appeared. 
Every  circumstance  which  could  arouse  preju- 
dice against  the  series  was  taken  advantage 
of,  from  party  political  feeling  and  religious 
bigotry,  down  to  the  weakness  of  fluid  philan- 
thropy, and  "the  prudery  and  timidity  of  the 
middle-classes  of  England."  The  principal 
ground  of  attack  was  the  story  which  dealt 
with  Malthusianism,  Weal  and  Woe  in  Garve- 
loch. 

When  the  course  of  my  exposition  brought 
me  to  the  population  subject,  I,  with  my  youth- 
ful and  provincial  mode  of  thought  and  feeling 
—  brought  up,  too,  amidst  the  prudery  which  is 
found  in  its  great  force  in  our  middle  class  — 
could  not  but  be  sensible  that  I  risked  much  in 
writing  and  publishing  on  a  subject  which  was 
not  universally  treated  in  the  pure,  benevolent, 
and  scientific  spirit  of  Malthus  himself.  ...  I 
said  nothing  to  anybody ;  and,  when  the  num- 
ber was  finished,  I  read  it  aloud  to  my  mother 
and  aunt.  If  there  had  been  any  opening 
whatever  for  doubt  or  dread,  I  was  sure  that 

*  In  the  same  number,  by  the  way,  appeared  the  notorious 
biting  and  sarcastic  notice  of  Tennyson's  second  volume.  It 
is  a  distinction,  indeed,  for  a  critical  review,  that  one  number 
should  have  devoted  half  its  space  to  violently  unfavorable 
criticisms  of  Alfred  Tennyson's  poetry  and  Harriet  Martineau's 
poliHcal  economy. 


124  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

these  two  ladies  would  have  given  me  abundant 
warning  and  exhortation- — both  from  their 
very  keen  sense  of  propriety  and  their  anxious 
affection  for  me.  But  they  were  as  complacent 
and  easy  as  they  had  been  interested  and  atten- 
tive.' I  saw  that  all  ought  to  be  safe. 

'The  Quarterly  Review  seized  the  opportunity 
of  the  appearance  of  this  number  to  make  a 
vile  attack  upon  the  series  and  its  writer. 
Harriet  suffered  under  it  to  a  degree  which 
seems  almost  excessive.  The  review  is  so 
obviously  full  of  fallacies,  as  regards  its  Polit- 
ical Economy,  that  any  person  whose  opinion 
was  worth  having  could  hardly  hesitate  in 
deciding  that  she,  and  not  her  critic,  was  talk- 
ing common-sense  and  arguing  logically.  As 
to  the  personal  part  of  the  article,  it  is,  though 
scurrilous,  and  even  indecent,  so  very  funny 
that  the  attacked  might  almost  have  forgotten 
the  insult  in  the  amusement.  Nevertheless, 
the  writers,  Croker  and  Lockhart,  did  their 
worst.  Croker  openly  said  that  he  expected  to 
lose  his  pension  very  shortly,  and,  being  wish- 
ful to  make  himself  a  literary  position  before 
that  event  happened,  he  had  begun  by  "toma- 
hawking Miss  Martineau."  All  that  could  be 
painful  to  her  as  a  woman,  and  injurious  to  her 
as  a  writer,  was  said,  or  attempted  to  be  con- 
veyed, in  this  article. 


THE  GREAT  SUCCESS.  12$ 

Let  us  see  what  it  was  all  about.  Garveloch, 
one  of  -the  Hebridean  islands,  is  seen  in  the 
"  Illustration "  rapidly  multiplying  its  popula- 
tion, both  by  early  marriages  and  by  immigra- 
tion, under  the  stimulus  of  a  passing  prosperity 
in  the  fishing  industry.  The  influx  of  capital 
and  the  increase  of  the  demand  for  food,  have 
led  to  such  an  improvement  in  the  cultivation 
of  the  land,  that  the  food  produce  of  the  island 
has  been  doubled  in  ten  years.  Ella,  the  hero- 
ine (a  fine,  strong,  self-contained,  helpful 
woman  —  one  of  the  noblest  female  characters 
in  these  works),  foresees  that  if  the  reckless 
increase  of  population  continues,  the  supply  of 
food  will  by-and-by  run  short.  Her  interlocutor 
asks  how  this  will  be  the  case,  since  the  popu- 
lation will  surely  not  double  again,  as  it  has 
done  already,  in  ten  years  ?  Then  the  Quarterly 
quotes  Ella's  reply,  and  comments  on  it  :  — 

"  Certainly  not ;  but  say  twenty,  thirty,  fifty  or 
any  number  of  years  you  choose ;  still,  as  the 
number  of  the  people  doubles  itself  for  ever, 
while  the  produce  of  the  land  does  not,  the 
people  must  increase  faster  than  the  produce." 

This  is  rare  logic  and  arithmetic,  and  not  a 
little  curious  as  natural  history.  A  plain  person 
now  would  have  supposed  that  if  the  produce 
doubled  itself  in  ten,  and  the  people  only  in 
a  hundred  years,  the  people  would  not  increase 
quite  so  fast  as  the  produce,  seeing  that  at  the 


126  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

end  of  the  first  century  the  population  would  be 
multiplied  but  by  two,  the  produce  by  one  thous- 
and and  twenty-four.  But  these  are  the  dis- 
coveries of  genius  !  Why  does  Miss  Martineau 
write,  except  to  correct  our  mistaken  notions 
and  to  expound  to  us  the  mysteries  of  "the 
principle  of  population." 

The  reviewer  goes  on  to  suggest,  in  the 
broadest  language,  that  she  has  confounded  the 
rate  of  the  multiplication  of  the  herring-fisher- 
women  with  that  of  the  herrings  themselves ; 
reproves  her  for  writing  on  "these  ticklish 
topics  "  with  so  little  physiological  information  ; 
and -tells  her  that  she,  "poor  innocent,  has  been 
puzzling  over  Mr.  Malthus's  arithmetical  and 
geometrical  ratios  for  knowledge  which  she 
should  have  obtained  by  a  simple  question  or 
two  of  her  mamma."  In  one  and  the  same 
paragraph,  he  tells  her  that  he  is  "loth  to  bring 
a  blush  unnecessarily  upon  the  cheek  of  any 
woman,"  and  asks  her  if  she  picked  up  her  infor- 
mation on  the  subject  "  in  her  conferences  with 
the  Lord  Chancellor  ?  " 

This  is  enough  to  show  to  what  a  sensitive 
young  lady  was  exposed  in  illustrating  "  a  prin- 
ciple as  undeniable  as  the  multiplication  table," 
and  in  stating  the  facts  upon  which  hangs  the 
explanation  of  the  poverty,  and  therefore  of 


THE  GREAT  SUCCESS.  I2/ 

a  large  part  of  the  vice  and  misery,  of  mankind. 
Miss  Martineau's  exposition  was,  of  course, 
entirely  right,  and  the  fallacy  in  the  review  is 
obvious,  one  would  suppose  on  the  surface. 
The  reviewer's  error  consists  in  his  assumption 
—  the  falsity  of  which  is  at  once  apparent  on  the 
face  of  the  statement  —  that  land  can  go  on 
doubling  its  produce  every  ten  years,  for  an 
indefinite  period.  So  far  from  this  being  true, 
the  fact  is  that  the  limit  of  improving  the  culti- 
vation of  land  is  soon  reached. 

Better  agricultural  treatment  may  easily  make 
half-cultivated  land  bring  forth  double  its  previ- 
ous produce  ;  but  the  highest  pitch  of  farming 
once  reached  —  as  it  comparatively  soon  is — 
the  produce  cannot  be  further  increased ;  and 
even  before  this  limit  is  reached,  the  return  for 
each  additional  application  of  capital  and  labor 
becomes  less  and  less  proportionately  bountiful. 
This  is  the  truth  known  to  political  economists 
as  "  the  Law  of  the  Diminishing  Return  of 
Land."  Taken  in  conjunction  with  the  fact 
that  the  human  race  can  double  for  ever,  theo- 
retically, and  in  reality  does  multiply  its  numbers 
with  each  generation,  checked  only  by  the  fore- 
thought of  the  more  prudent  and  the  operations 
of  famine,  war,  crime,  and  the  diseases  caused 
by  poverty,  this  law  explains  why  mankind  does 


128  HARRIET  AfARTINEAU. 

not  more  rapidly  improve  its  condition  —  why 
the  poor,  have  been  always  with  us — and  why 
teaching  such  as  Harriet  Martineau  here  gave 
must  be  received  into  the  popular  mind  before 
the  condition  of  society  can  be  expected  to  be 
improved  in  the  only  way  possible,  by  the  wis- 
dom and  prudence  of  its  members. 

Painful  as  was  the  attack  she  had  undergone, 
intensely  as  she  had  suffered  from  its  character 
and  nature,  Miss  Martineau  did  not  allow  what 
she  had  felt  of  personal  distress  to  have  any 
influence  on  her  future  writings.  Her  moral 
courage  had  been  well  trained  and  exercised, 
first  by  the  efforts  that  her  mind  had  had  to 
make  in  following  her  conscience  as  a  guide  to 
the  formation  of  opinions,  in  opposition  to  the 
tendency  implanted  by  her  mother's  treatment 
to  bow  supinely  before  authority;  secondly, 
by  the  lesson  of  endurance  which  her  deafness 
had  brought  to  her.  She  had  now  to  show,  for 
the  first,  but  by  no  means  the  last  time,  that 
hers  was  one  of  those  temperaments  which 
belong  to  all  leaders  of  men,  whether  in  physical 
or  moral  warfare;  that  danger  was  to  her  a 
stimulus,  and  that  her  courage  rose  the  higher 
the  greater  the  demand  for  its  exercise. 

Praise  and  blame,  appreciation  and  defama- 
tion, strengthened  and  enlarged  her  mind  during 


THE   GREAT  SUCCESS.  129 

this  period.  But  at  the  end  of  it,  Sydney  Smith 
could  say :  "She  has  gone  through  such  a 
season  as  no  girl  before  ever  knew,  and  she 
has  kept  her  own  mind,  her  own  manners,  and 
her  own  voice.  She's  safe." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

FIVE    ACTIVE    YEARS. 

ON  the  conclusion  of  the  publication  of  the 
Illustrations  of  Political  Economy,  Harriet  went 
to  the  United  States,  and  travelled  there  for  more 
than  two  years.  Her  fame  had  preceded  her ; 
and  she  received  the  warm  and  gracious  greeting 
from  the  generous  people  of  America  that  they 
are  ever  ready  to  give  to  distinguished  guests 
from  their  "little  Mother-isle."  She  travelled 
not  only  in  the  Northern  States,  but  in  the 
South  and  the  West  too,  going  in  the  one  direc- 
tion from  New  York  to  New  Orleans,  and  in 
the  other  to  Chicago  and  Michigan.  Every- 
where she  was  received  with  eager  hospitality. 
Public  institutions  were  freely  thrown  open  to 
her,  and  eminent  citizens  vied  with  each  other 
in  showing  her  attention,  publicly  and  privately. 
The  most  noteworthy  incident  in  the  course  of 
the  whole  two  years  was  her  public  declaration 
of  her  anti-slavery  principles.  The  Anti-Slavery 
movement  was  in  its  beginning.  The  aboli- 
tionists were  the  subjects  of  abuse  and  social 


FIVE  ACTIVE    YEARS.  131 

persecution,  and  Miss  Martineau  was  quickly 
made  aware  that  by  a  declaration  in  their  favor 
she  would  risk  incurring  odium,  and  might 
change  her  popularity  in  society  into  disrepute 
and  avoidance.  It  would  have  been  perfectly" 
easy  for  a  less  active  conscience  and  a  less  true 
moral  sense  to  have  evaded  the  question,  in  such 
a  manner  that  neither  party  could  have  upbraided 
her  for  her  action.  She  might  simply  have  said 
that  she  was  there  as  a  learner,  not  as  a  teacher; 
that  her  business  was  to  survey  American 
society,  and  not  to  take  any  share  in  its  party 
disputes,  or  to  give  any  opinion  on  the  political 
questions  of  a  strange  land.  Such  paltering 
with  principle  was  impossible  to  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau. She  did  not  obtrude  her  utterances  on 
the  subject,  but  when  asked  in  private  society 
what  she  thought,  she  frankly  spoke  out  her 
utter  abhorrence,  not  merely  of  slavery  in  the 
abstract,  but  also  of  the  state  of  the  Southern 
slave-holders  and  their  human  property.  She 
could  not  help  seeing  that  this  candor  often  gave 
offense ;  but  that  was  not  her  business  when  her 
opinion  was  sought  on  a  moral  question. 

The  really  searching  test  of  her  personal  char- 
acter did  not  come,  however,  with  regard  to  this 
matter,  till  she  went  to  stay  for  a  while  in  Bos- 
ton, the  head-quarters  of  the  abolitionists,  fifteen 
months  after  her  arrival  in  America.  It  hap- 


132  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

pened  that  she  reached  Boston  the  very  day  a 
ladies'  anti-slavery  meeting  was  broken  up  by 
the  violence  of  a  mob,  and  that  Garrison,  falling 
into  the  hands  of  the  enraged  multitude,  was 
half-murdered  in  the  street.  Harriet  had  given 
a  promise,  long  previously,  to  attend  an  aboli- 
tionists'meeting;  and  though  these  occurrences 
showed  her  that  there  was  actual  personal  dan- 
ger in  keeping  her  word,  she  was  not  to  be 
intimidated.  She  went  to  the  very  next  meet- 
ing of  the  ladies'  society,  which  was  held  a 
month  after  the  one  so  violently  disturbed,  and 
there,  being  unexpectedly  begged  to  "give  them 
the  comfort "  of  a  few  words  from  her,  she  rose, 
and  as  the  official  report  says,  "  with  great  dig- 
nity and  simplicity  of  manner,"  declared  her  full 
sympathy  with  the  principles  of  the  association. 
She  knew  well  how  grave  would  be  the  social 
consequences  to  her  of  thus  throwing  in  her  lot 
with  the  despised  and  insulted  abolitionists ; 
but  she  felt  that  "she  never  could  be  happy 
again  "  if  she  shrunk  from  the  duty  of  expres- 
sion thrust  upon  her.  The  results  to  her  were 
as  serious  as  she  had  apprehended.  She  re- 
ceived innumerable  personal  insults  and  slights, 
public  and  private,  where  before  all  had  been 
homage ;  the  Southern  newspapers  threatened 
her  personal  safety,  calling  her  a  foreign  "  incen- 
diary ; "  and,  to  crown  all,  she  had  to  give 


FIVE  ACTIVE    YEARS.  133 

up  an  intended  Ohio  tour,  on  the  information  of 
an  eminent  Cincinnati  merchant  that  he  had 
heard  with  his  own  ears  the  details  of  a  plot  to 
hang  her  on  the  wharf  at  Louisville,  before  the 
respectable  inhabitants  could  intervene,  in  order 
to  "warn  all  other  meddlesome  foreigners." 

All  this  abuse  and  insult  and  threatening 
from  the  lower  kind  of  persons,  interested  for 
their  purses,  had,  of  course,  no  influence  upon 
the  hundred  private  friendships  that  she  had 
formed.  Ardent  and  deep  was  the  affection 
with  which  many  Americans  came  to  regard 
her,  and  with  some  of  them  her  intimate  friend- 
ship lasted  through  all  the  succeeding  forty 
years  of  her  life.  Emerson  was  one  of  these 
friends,  and  Garrison  another.  It  was  her  fre- 
quent correspondence  with  these  and  many 
others  that  kept  her  interest  in  the  affairs  of 
the  United  States  so  active,  and  made  her  so 
well-informed  about  them  as  to  give  her  the 
great  authority  that  she  had,  both  in  England 
and  America,  during  the  life  and  death  struggle 
of  the  Union,  so  that  at  that  time,  when  she 
was  writing  leaders  for  the  London  Daily  News, 
Mr.  W.  E.  Forster  said  that  "it  was  Harriet 
Martineau  alone  who  was  keeping  English  pub- 
lic opinion  about  America  on  the  right  side 
through  the  press." 

Loath  to  leave  such  friendships  behind,  and 


134  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

yet  longing  for  home,  she  sailed  from  New 
York  at  the  end  of  July,  1836,  and  reached 
Liverpool  on  the  26th  August.  A  parting  act 
of  American  chivalry  was  that  her  ship-passage 
was  paid  for  her  by  some  unknown  friend. 

It  was  while  she  was  in  the  United  States 
that  the  first  portrait  of  her  which  I  have 
seen  was  painted.  She  herself  did  not  like  it, 
calling  the  attitude  melodramatic ;  but  her  sister 
Rachel,  I  am  told,  always  declared  that  it  was 
the  only  true  portrait  of  Harriet  that  was  ever 
taken.  At  this  point,  then,  some  idea  of  her 
person  may  be  given. 

She  was  somewhat  above  the  middle  height, 
and  at  this  time  had  a  slender  figure.  The 
face  in  the  portrait  is  oval ;  the  forehead  rather 
broad,  as  well  as  high,  but  not  either  to  a  re- 
markable degree.  The  most  noticeable  pecu- 
liarity of  the  face  is  found  in  a  slight  projection 
of  the  under  lip.  The  nose  is  straight,  not  at 
all  turned  up  at  the  end,  but  yet  with  a  definite 
tip  to  it.  The  eyes  are  a  clear  gray,  with  a 
calm,  steadfast,  yet  sweet  gaze  ;  indeed  there  is 
an  almost  appealing  look  in  them.  The  hair  is 
of  so  dark  a  brown  as  to  appear  nearly  black. 
A  tress  of  it  (cut  off  twenty  years  later  than 
this  American  visit,  when  it  had  turned  snow- 
white)  '  has  been  given  to  me  ;  and  I  find  the 
treasured  relic  to  be  of  exceptionally  fine  tex- 


FIVE  ACTIVE    YEARS.  135 

ture  —  a  sure  sign  of  a  delicate  and  sensitive 
nervous  organization.  Her  hands  and  feet  were 
small. 

She  was  certainly  not  beautiful ;  besides  the 
slight  projection  of  the  lower  lip  the  face  has 
the  defect  of  the  cheeks  sloping  in  too  much 
towards  the  chin.  But  she  was  not  strikingly 
plain  either.  The  countenance  in  this  picture 
has  a  look  both  of  appealing  sweetness  and  of 
strength  in  reserve  ;  and  one  feels  that  with 
such  beauty  of  expression  it  could  not  fail  to  be 
attractive  to  those  who  looked  upon  it  with 
sympathy. 

The  competition  amongst  the  publishers  for 
Miss  Martineau's  book  on  America  was  an 
amusing  contrast  to  the  scorn  with  which  her 
proposals  for  her  Political  Enonomy  had  been  re- 
ceived. Murray  sent  a  message  through  a  friend, 
offering  to  undertake  the  American  work  ;  and 
letters  from  two  other  publishers  were  awaiting 
her  arrival  in  England.  On  the  day  that  the 
newspapers  announced  that  she  had  reached 
town  no  fewer  than  three  of  the  chief  London 
publishers  called  upon  her  with  proposals.  She 
declined  those  of  Bentley  and  Colburn,  and 
accepted  the  offer  of  Messrs.  Saunders  and 
Otley  to  pay  her  ^£300  per  volume  for  the  first 
edition  of  three  thousand  copies.  The  book 
appeared  in  three  volumes,  so  that  she  received 


136  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

^900  for  it.  She  completed  the  three  goodly 
volumes  in  six  months. 

She  had  wished  to  call  the  book  Theory  and 
Practice  of  Society  in  America,  a  title  which*  would 
have  exactly  expressed  the  position  that  she  took 
up  in  it,  viz.,  that  the  Americans  should  be  j  udged 
by  the  degree  in  which  they  approached,  in 
their  daily  lives,  to  the  standard  of  the  principles 
laid  down  in  their  Constitution.  Her  publishers 
so  strongly  objected  to  this  title,  that  she  con- 
sented to  call  the  work  simply  Society  in  America. 
She  held  to  her  scheme  none  the  less,  and  the 
book  proceeds  upon  it.  She  quotes  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  that  all  men  are  created 
equal,  with  an  inalienable  right  to  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  and  that  Govern- 
ments derive  their  just  powers  from  the  con- 
sent of  the  governed.  "Every  true  citizen,"  she 
claims,  "  must  necessarily  be  content  to  have 
his  self-government  tried  by  the  test  of  the 
principles  to  which,  by  his  citizenship,  he  has 
become  a  subscriber."  She  brings  social  life 
in  the  United  States  of  1834-6  to  this  test 
accordingly. 

That  method  of  approaching  her  subject  had 
some  advantages.  It  enabled  her  to  treat  with 
peculiar  force  the  topics  of  slavery,  of  the  ex- 
clusion of  women  from  political  affairs,  and 
of  the  subservience  to  the  despotism  of  pub- 


FIVE  ACTIVE    YEARS. 

lie  opinion  which  she  found  to  exist  at  that  time 
in  America. 

But  she  herself  came  to  see,  in  after  times, 
that  her  plan  (leaving  the  details  aside)  was 
radically  faulty.  She  was,  as  she  says,  "  at  the 
most  metaphysicial  period"  of  her  mental  his- 
tory. Thus,  she  failed  at  the  moment  to  perceive 
that  she  commenced  her  subject  at  the  wrong 
end'm  taking  a  theory  and  judging  the  facts  of 
American  society  by  their  agreement  or  dis- 
agreement with  that  a  priori  philosophy.  It 
was  the  theory  that  had  to  be  judged  by  the 
way  in  which  the  people  lived  under  a  govern- 
ment framed  upon  it,  and  not  the  people  by  the 
degree  in  which  they  live  up  to  the  theory. 
The  English  public  wanted  a  book  that  would 
help  them  to  know  the  American  public  and  its 
ways ;  the  Americans  required  to  see  through 
the  eyes  of  an  observant,  cultivated  foreigner, 
what  they  were  being  and  doing.  It  is  this 
which  a  traveller  has  to  do  —  to  observe  facts: 
to  draw  lessons  from  them,  if  he  will,  but  not  to 
consider  the  facts,  in  their  relationship  to  a 
pre-conceived  theory.  Human  experience  is 
perennially  important  and  eternally  interesting  ; 
and  this  is  what  a  traveller  has  to  note  and 
record.  Political  philosophies  must  be  gathered 
from  experience  instead  of  (what  she  attempt- 
ed) the  real  life  being  viewed  only  as  related 


138  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

to  the  philosophy.  In  fine,  her  error  was  in 
treating  abstractedly  what  was  necessarily  a 
concrete  theme. 

With  this  objection  to  the  scheme  of  the 
book,  all  criticism  may  end.  All  criticism  did 
not  end  (any  more  than  it  began)  in  this  way  in 
1837.  Speaking  out  so  boldly  as  she  did  on  a 
variety  of  the  most  important  social  topics,  she 
naturally  aroused  opposition,  which  the  power 
and  eloquence  of  the  style  did  not  mitigate. 

The  anti-slavery  tone  of  the  book  alone 
would  have  ensured  violent  attacks  upon  it  and 
its  author,  as,  after  her  ostracism  because  of 
her  anti-slavery  declaration,  she  well  knew 
would  be  the  case.  "This  subject  haunts  us 
on  every  page,"  distressfully  wrote  Margaret 
Fuller;  and  greatly  exaggerated  though  this 
statement  was,  it  certainly  is  true  that  there  is 
hardly  a  chapter  in  which  the  reader  is  allowed 
to  forget  that  the  curse  of  humanity  made  mer- 
chandise, shadowed  life,  directly  or  indirectly, 
throughout  the  whole  United  States.  Neither 
by  the  holders  of  slaves  in  the  South,  nor  by 
their  accessories  in  the  North,  was  it  possible, 
that  she  could  be  regarded  otherwise  than  as 
an  enemy,  the  more  powerful,  and  therefore 
the  more  to  be  hated  and  abused,  because  of 
her  standing  and  her  ability.  In  estimating 
the  courage  and  disinterestedness  which  she 


FIVE  ACTIVE    YEARS.  139 

displayed  in  so  decisively  bearing  her  witness 
against  the  state  of  American  society  under 
the  slave  system,  it  must  be  remembered  not 
only  that  she  had  many  valued  personal  friends 
in  the  South,  and  amongst  the  anti-abolition- 
ists of  the  North,  but  also  that  she  knew  that 
she  was  closing  against  herself  a  wide  avenue 
for  the  dissemination  of  her  opinions  upon  any 
subject  whatsoever.  No  book  written  by  an 
abolitionist  would  be  admitted  into  any  one 
of  thousands  of  American  homes.  The  aboli- 
tionists reprinted  portions  of  Society  of -Amer- 
ica, as  a  pamphlet,  and  distributed  it  broadcast. 
The  result  was  that,  up  to  the  time  when 
slavery  was  abolished  Harriet  Martineau  was 
continually  held  up  to  scorn  and  reprobation  in 
Southern  newspapers,  "in  the  good  company  of 
Mrs.  Chapman  and  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe." 

Even  greater  courage  was  displayed  by  Har- 
riet Martineau  in  her  boldness  of  utterance 
upon  some  other  points,  about  which  freedom 
of  thought  was  as  obnoxious  in  England  as  in 
America.  When  she  maintained  that  divorce 
should  be  permissible  by  mutual  consent,  pro- 
vided only  that  the  interests  of  children  and 
the  distribution  of  property  were  equitably 
arranged  for ;  when  she  pleaded  for  the  eman- 
cipation of  women ;  or  when  she  devoted  a 


140  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

chapter  to  showing  the  evils  which  spring  from 
the  accumulation  of  enormous  fortunes,  and 
incidentally  attacked  the  laws  and  customs  of 
primogeniture,  of  the  transfer  of  land,  and  the 
like,  which  are  devised  specially  to  facilitate 
and  encourage  such  accumulations :  in  these 
and  other  passages  of  an  equally  radical  nature, 
she  braved  a  large  body  of  opinion  in  English 
society,  as  well  as  in  the  other  country  for 
which  she  wrote.  She  mentions  subsequently, 
that  for  many  years  she  was  occasionally  startled 
by  finding  herself  regarded  in  various  quarters 
as  a  free-thinker  upon  dangerous  subjects,  and 
as  something  of  a  demagogue.  I  have  little 
doubt  that  the  "  advanced  "  political  philosophy 
of  Society  in  America  did  originate  such  suspi- 
cions in  minds  of  the  Conservative  order,  "  the 
timid  party,"  as  she  described  them  in  this 
same  book.  Yet  she  adds  : 

I  have  never  regretted  its  boldness  of  speech. 
I  felt  a  relief  in  having  opened  my  mind  which 
I  would  at  no  time  have  exchanged  for  any  gain 
of  reputation  or  fortune.  The  time  had  come 
when,  having  experienced  what  might  be  called 
the  extremes  of  obscurity  and  difficulty  first,  anc 
influence  and  success  afterwards,  I  could  pro 
nounce  that  there  was  nothing  for  which  it  was; 
worth  sacrificing  freedom  of  thought  and  speech. 

There  was  but  little  in  Society  in  America  of 
the  ordinary  book  of  travels.     As  an  account  of 


FIVE  ACTIVE    YEARS.  141 

the  political  condition  and  the  social  arrange- 
ments of  the  American  people  it  was  of  singular 
value.  But  the  personal  incidents  of  travel,  the 
descriptions  of  scenery,  the  reminiscences  of 
eminent  persons,  of  all  which  Harriet  Martineau 
had  gathered  a  store,  were  entirely  omitted 
from  this  work.  Messrs.  Saunders  and  Otley 
suggested  to  her  that  she  should  make  a  second 
book  out  of  this  kind  of  material.  She  con- 
sented ;  and  wrote  her  Retrospect  of  Western 
Travel.  She  completed  the  manuscript  of  this 
in  December,  1837,  and  it  was  published  soon 
afterwards  in  three  volumes.  The  publishers 
gave  her  six  hundred  pounds  for  it. 

The  fifteen  hundred  pounds  which  she  thus 
earned  exceeded  in  amount  the  whole  of  what 
she  had  then  received  for  her  Illustrations  of 
Political  Economy.  The  last-named  great  work 
was  nearly  all  published  upon  the  absurdly 
unequal  terms  which  Charles  Fox  had  secured 
from  her  in  the  beginning.  It  was  character- 
istic of  her  generosity  in  pecuniary  matters  and 
her  loyalty  to  her  friends,  that  although  her 
agreement  with  Fox  was  dissoluble  at  the  end 
of  every  five  numbers,  she  nevertheless  allowed 
it  to  hold  good,  and  permitted  him  to  pocket  a 
very  leonine  share  of  her  earnings  throughout 
the  whole  publication  of  the  original  series, 
only  claiming  a  revision  of  the  terms  when 


142  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

she  commenced  afresh,  as  it  were,  with  the 
"Poor-Law,"  and  "Taxation"  tales.  Thus  the 
immense  popularity  of  the  Illustrations  had  not 
greatly  enriched  her.  A  portion  of  her  earnings 
by  them  was  invested  in  her  American  tour ; 
and  now  that  she  received  this  return  from  her 
books  of  travels  she  felt  it  her  duty  to  make 
a  provision  for  the  future.  She  purchased  a 
deferred  annuity  of  one  hundred  pounds  to  begin 
in  April,  1850.  It  displayed  a  characteristic 
calm  confidence  in  herself  that  she  should  thus, 
have  entirely  locked  up  her  earnings  for  twelve 
years.  She  clearly  felt  a  quiet  assurance  that 
her  brain  and  her  hand  would  serve  to  maintain 
her,  at  least  as  long  as  she  was  in  the  flower  of 
her  age. 

The  six  volumes  about  America  were  not  the 
whole  of  her  work  during  the  first  eighteen 
months  after  her  return  to  England.  She  wrote 
an  article  on  Miss  Sedgwick's  works  for  the 
Westminster  Review,  and  several  other  short 
papers  for  various  magazines.  The  extraordi- 
nary industry  with  which  she  returned  to  labor 
after  her  long  rest  requires  no  comment. 

Early  in  1838  she  wrote  a  work  called  How  to 
Observe  in  Morals  and  Manners.  It  forms  a 
crown  octavo  volume  of  two  hundred  and  thirty- 
eight  pages,  and  was  published  by  Mr.  Charles 
Knight.  The  book  is  an  interesting  one,  both 


FIVE  ACTIVE    YEARS.  143 

for  the  reflections  which  it  contains  upon  the 
subject  of  its  title,  and  as  indicating  the  method 
which  she  had  herself  pursued  in  her  study  of 
the  morals  and  manners  of  the  country  in  which 
she  had  been  travelling.  There  is  certainly  no 
failure  in  the  courage  with  which  she  expresses 
her  convictions.  She  admits  elsewhere  that  the 
abuse  which  she  received  from  America  had  so 
acted  upon  her  mind  that  she  had  come  to  quail 
at  the  sight  of  letters  addressed  in  a  strange 
handwriting,  or  of  newspapers  sent  from  the 
United  States.  But  there  is  no  trace  in  this 
her  next  considerable  work  of  any  tendency  to 
follow  rather  than  to  lead  the  public  opinion  of 
her  time.  One  paragraph  only  may  be  quoted 
to  indicate  this  fact : 

Persecution  for  opinion  is  always  going  on. 
It  can  be  inflicted  out  of  the  province  of  Law  as 
well  as  through  it.  ...  Whatever  a  nation  may 
tell  him  of  its  love  of  liberty  should  go  for  little 
if  he  sees  a  virtuous  man's  children  taken  from 
him  on  the  ground  of  his  holding  an  unusual 
religious  belief ;  or  citizens  mobbed  for  assert- 
ing the  rights  of  negroes  ;  or  moralists  treated 
with  public  scorn  for  carrying  out  allowed  prin- 
ciples to  their  ultimate  issues;  or  scholars 
oppressed  for  throwing  new  light  on  the  sacred 
text;  or  philosophers  denounced  for  bringing 
fresh  facts  to  the  surface  of  human  knowledge, 
whether  they  seem  to  agree  or  not  with  long 
established  suppositions.* 

*  How  to  Observe,  p.  204. 


144  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

The  next  piece  of  work  that  Harriet  did  in 
this  spring  of  1838  was  of  a  very  different  order. 
The  Poor-Law  Commissioners  were  desirous  of 
issuing  a  series  of  "  Guides  to  Service,"  and 
application  was  made  to  Miss  Martineau  to  write 
some  of  these  little  books.  She  undertook  The 
Maid  of  All  Work,  The  Housemaid,  The  Lady  s 
Maid  and  The  Dress-maker.  These  were  issued 
without  her  name  on  the  title-page,  but  the 
authorship  was  an  open  secret. 

She  was  a  thoroughly  good  housekeeper  her- 
self. Her  conscience  went  into  this,  as  into  all 
her  other  business.  "  Housewifery  is  supposed 
to  transact  itself,"  she  wrote  ;  "but  in  reality  it 
requires  all  the  faculties  which  can  be  brought 
to  bear  upon  it,  and  all  the  good  moral  habits 
which  conscience  can  originate."  It  was  in  this 
spirit  that  she  wrote  instructions  for  servants. 
The  fine  moral  tone  invariably  discoverable  in 
her  works,  is  as  delightful  here  as  elsewhere. 
But  the  little  "  Guides  to  Sendee,"  contain  also 
the  most  precise  and  practical  directions  for  the 
doing  of  the  household  duties  and  the  needle- 
work which  fall  to  the  hands  of  the  classes  of 
servants  for  whom  she  wrote.  Practical  hints 
are  given  from  which  the  majority  of  these 
classes  of  women-workers  might  learn  much, 
for  brains  tell  in  the  mean  and  dirty  scrubbery 
of  life  as  well  as  in  pleasanter  things,  and  science 


FIVE  ACTIVE    YEARS.  145 

is  to  be  applied  to  common  domestic  duties  as 
to  bigger  undertakings.  The  heart  and  mind  of 
Harriet  Martineau  were  equal  to  teaching  upon 
matters  such  as  these,  as  well  as  to  studying  the 
deeper  relations  of  mankind  in  political  econ- 
omy, or  the  state  of  society  in  a  foreign  land. 
Her  great  power  of  sympathy  enabled  her  to 
enter  fully  into  every  human  position.  So  well 
was  the  maid-of-all-work's  station  described,  and 
her  duties  indicated,  and  her  trials  pointed  out, 
and  how  she  might  solace  herself  under  those 
troubles  discovered,  and  the  way  in  which  her 
work  should  be  set  about  detailed,  that  the 
rumor  spread  pretty  widely  that  Harriet  had 
once  occupied  such  a  situation  herself.  She 
regarded  this  mistake  with  complacency,  as  a 
tribute  to  the  practical  character  of  her  little 
work. 

As  a  fact,  she  was  herself  a  capable  house- 
wife. Her  housekeeping  was  always  well  done. 
Her  own  hands,  indeed,  as  well  as  her  head, 
were  employed  in  it  on  occasion.  When  in  her 
home,  she  daily  filled  her  lamp  herself.  She 
dusted  her  own  books,  too,  invariably.  Some- 
times she  did  more.  Soon  after  her  establish- 
ment at  the  Lakes  (an  event  which  we  have  not 
yet  reached,  but  the  anecdote  is  in  place  here), 
a  lady  who  greatly  reverenced  her  for  her  writ- 
ings called  upon  her  in  her  new  home,  accom- 


146  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

panied  by  a  gentleman  friend,  As  the  visitors 
approached  the  house  by  the  carriage-drive, 
they  saw  someone  perched  on  a  set  of  kitchen 
steps,  cleaning  the  drawing-room  windows.  It 
was  the  famous  authoress  herself !  She  calmly 
went  for  her  trumpet,  to  listen  to  their  business  ; 
and  when  they  had  introduced  themselves,  she 
asked  them  in,  and  entered  into  an  interesting 
conversation  on  various  literary  topics.  Before 
they  left,  she  explained,  with  evident  amuse- 
ment at  having  been  caught  at  her  housemaid's 
duties,  that  the  workmen  had  been  long  about 
the  house  ;  that  this  morning,  when  the  dirty 
windows  might  for  the  first  time  be  cleaned, 
one  of  her  servants  had  gone  off  to  marry  a 
carpenter,  and  the  other  to  see  the  ceremony ; 
and  so  the  mistress,  tired  of  the  dirt,  had  set  to 
work  to  wash  and  polish  her  window  for  herself. 
An  article  on  "  Domestic  Service,"  for  the 
Westminster  Review,  was  written  easily,  while 
her  mind  was  so  full  of  the  subject,  in  the  be- 
ginning of  June,  1838.  But  a  great  enterprise 
was  before  her  —  a  novel ;  and  at  length  she 
settled  down  to  this,  beginning  it  on  her  thirty- 
sixth  birthday,  June  I2th,  1838.  The  writing 
of  this  new  book  was  interrupted  by  a  tour  in 
Scotland  during  August  and  September,  and  by 
writing  a  remarkable  and  eloquent  article  on 
slavery,  "The  Martyr  Age  of  the  United 


FIVE  ACTIVE    YEARS.  147 

States,"  which  occupies  fifty-five  pages  of  the 
Westminster  'Review  in  the  January,  1839,  num- 
ber of  that  publication.  The  novel  got  finished, 
however,  in  February  of  this  latter  year;  and 
it  was  published  by  Easter  under  the  title  of 
Deerbrook. 

Great  expectations  had  been  entertained  by 
the  literary  public  of  Harriet  Martineau's  first 
novel.  The  excellences  of  her  Illustrations  as 
works  of  fiction  had  been  so  marked  and  so 
many,  that  it  was  anticipated  that  she  might 
write  a  novel  of  the  highest  order  when  released 
from  the  trammels  under  which  she  wrote  those 
tales.  To  most  of  those  who  had  expected  so 
much  Deerbrook  was  a  complete  disappointment. 
I  believe  I  may  j  ustly  say  that  it  is  the  weakest 
of  all  Harriet  Martineau's  writings.  It  is,  in- 
deed, J:ar  superior  in  all  respects  to  nine  hundred 
out  of  every  thousand  novels  published.  But 
she  is  not  judged  by  averages.  A  far  higher 
standard  of  literary  art  is  that  to  which  we  ex- 
pect Harriet  Martineau's  writings  to  conform. 

The  book  is  deficient  in  story.  Deerbrook  is 
a  country  village,  where  two  sisters  from  Birm- 
ingham, Hester  and  Margaret  Ibbotson,  take  up 
their  temporary  abode.  Mr.  Hope,  the  village 
surgeon,  falls  in  love  with  Margaret ;  but  being 
told  that  Hester  loves  him,  while  Margaret  is 
attached  to  Philip  Enderby,  Hope  decides  to 


148  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

propose  to  Hester  ;  is  accepted,  married  to  the 
sister  he  does  not  love,  and  sets  up  housekeep- 
ing with  the  sister  with  whom  he  is  in  love  as 
an  inmate  of  his  home.  The  wife,  moreover,  is 
of  a  jealous,  exacting  disposition,  ever  on  the 
watch  for  some  token  of  neglect  of  her  feelings 
by  her  friends,  anxious,  irritable,  and  hyper- 
sensitive. 

Here  is  a  situation  which,  the  characters 
being  what  they  are  described  to  be,  could  in 
real  life  eventuate  only  in  either  violent  tragedy 
or  long,  slow  heart-break.  A  woman  of  ultra- 
sensitive and  refined  feelings  could  not  live 
with  a  husband  and  a  sister  under  such  circum- 
stances without  discovering  the  truth.  A  man 
of  active  temperament  and  warm  emotions, 
who  declares  to  himself  on  the  night  of  his 
return  from  his  wedding  tour  that  his  marriage 
"  has  been  a  mistake,  that  he  has  desecrated 
his  own  home,  and  doomed  to  withering  the 
best  affections  of  his  nature,"  —  such  a  man, 
with  the  woman  he  really  loves  living  in  his 
home,  beside  the  unloved  wife,  could  not  com- 
pletely conceal  his  state  of  mind  from  every- 
body, and  presently  find  that  after  all  he  likes 
the  one  he  has  married  best.  Yet  in  the  impos- 
sible manner  just  indicated  do  all  things  end  in 
Deerbrook.  The  interest  of  the  book  is  then 
suddenly  shifted  to  Margaret  and  Enderby. 


FIVE  ACTIVE    YEARS.  149 

Hope  and  Hester  become  mere  accessories. 
But  the  plot  does  not  improve.  The  Deer- 
brook  people,  hitherto  adorers  of  their  doctor, 
suddenly  take  to  throwing  stones  at  him,  and 
to  mobbing  his  house,  because  he  votes  for  the 
Parliamentary  candidate  opposed  by  the  great 
man  of  the  village,  and  because  they  take  it 
into  their  heads  (not  a  particle  of  reason  why 
they  do  so  being  shown,)  that  he  anatomizes 
bodies  from  the  graveyard.  We  are  invited  to 
believe  that  though  his  practice  had  been  singu- 
larly successful,  all  his  patients  deserted  him  ; 
and  notwithstanding  that  Hester  and  Margaret 
had  each  seventy  pounds  a  year  of  private 
income,  the  household  was  thus  reduced  to 
such  distress  that  they  could  not  afford  gloves, 
and  had  to  part  with  all  their  servants,  and 
dined  as  a  rule  off  potatoes  and  bread  and  but- 
ter !  Then  Margaret's  lover,  Enderby,  hears 
that  she  and  Hope  loved  each  other  before 
Hope  married  ;  and  though  he  does  not  for  a 
moment  suspect  anything  wrong  in  the  present, 
and  though  he  passionately  loves  Margaret, 
this  supposed  discovery  that  he  is  not  her  first 
love  causes  him  to  peremptorily  and  with- 
out explanation  break  off  the  engagement. 
Presently,  however,  an  epidemic  comes  and 
restores  confidence  in  Mr.  Hope  ;  and  Ender- 
by's  sister,  who  had  given  him  the  information 


ISO  HARRIET  MARTINEAV. 

on  which  he  acted,  confesses  that  she  had  exag- 
gerated the  facts  and  invented  part  of  her 
story  ;  and  so  it  all  ends,  and  they  live  happily 
ever  after ! 

Feeble  and  untrue  as  are  plot  and  characters 
in  this  "poor  novel  "  (as  Carlyle  without  injus- 
tice called  it),  yet  many  scenes  are  well  written, 
the  details  are  truly  colored,  and  every  page  is 
illuminated  with  thought  of  so  high  an  order 
and  language  so  brilliant,  so  flowing,  so  felici- 
tous, that  one  forgives,  for  the  sake  of  merits 
such  as  these,  the  failure  of  the  fiction  to  be 
either  true  or  interesting.  This  seemed  to 
show,  nevertheless,  that  Harriet  could  write 
essays,  and  travels,  and  didactic  and  philosoph- 
ical works,  but  could  not  write  a  novel  except 
"with  a  purpose,"  when  the  accomplishment  of 
the  purpose  might  excuse  any  other  shortcom- 
ings. But  when  one  considers  the  great  excel- 
lence of  many  of  the  Illustrations,  the  decided 
drawing  of  the  characters,  the  truthful  analysis 
of  the  springs  of  human  action,  the  manner  in 
which  the  incidents  are  combined  and  arranged 
to  develop  and  display  dispositions  and  histo- 
ries, it  becomes  clear  that  she  had  great  powers 
as  an  imaginative  depicter  of  human  nature 
and  social  life,  and  that  there  must  have  been 
other  causes  than  sheer  incapacity  for  the  faults 
and  the  feebleness  of  Deerbrook. 


FIVE  ACTIVE    YEARS.  151 

The  first  cause  was  what  seems  to  me  a  mis- 
taken theory  about  plots  in  fiction,  which  she 
had  adopted  since  writing  the  Illustrations. 
She  now  fancied  that  a  perfect  plot  must  be 
taken  from  life,  forgetting  that  we  none  of  us 
know  the  whole  plot  of  the  existence  of  any 
other  creature  than  ourselves,  and  that  the  psy- 
chological insight  of  the  gifted  novelist  is  dis- 
played in  arguing  from  what  is  known  to  what 
is  unknown,  and  in  combining  the  primary  ele- 
ments of  human  character  into  their  necessary 
consequences  in  act  and  feeling.  This  error  she 
would  have  been  cured  from  by  experience  had 
she  gone  on  writing  fiction.  She  might  have 
been  aided  in  this  by  what  she  nafvely  enough 
avows  about  Deerbrook :  that  she  supposed 
that  she  took  the  story  of  Hope's  marriage 
from  the  history  of  a  friend  of  her  family,  and 
that  she  afterwards  found  out  that  nothing  of 
the  sort  had  really  happened  to  him  !  She  might 
then  have  asked  herself  whether  the  story  as  she 
had  told  it  was  more  possible  than  it  was  possi- 
ble that  gunpowder  should  be  put  to  flame  with- 
out an  explosion.  A  girl  in  her  teens  might 
have  been  forgiven  for  playing  with  the  history 
of  the  wildest  passions  of  the  human  heart ;  but 
Harriet  Martineau  erred  because  she  tried  to 
enslave  herself  to  fact  in  a  matter  in  which  she 
should  have  inferred,  judged  from  psychological 


152  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

principles,  and  trusted  to  the  intuitions  of  her 
own  mind  for  the  final  working  out  of  her  prob- 
lem. As  it  was,  if  her  "fact "  had  been  a  reality 
we  should  have  been  compelled  to  account  for 
the  placid  progress  of  events  by  the  supposition 
that  she  had  utterly  misrepresented  the  charac- 
ters of  the  persons  involved. 

This  bondage  to  (supposed)  fact  was  one  cause 
of  her  failure.  A  lesser,  but  still  important  rea- 
son for  it,  was  that  she  tried  to  imitate  Jane 
Austen's  style.  Her  admiration  of  the  works  of 
this  mistress  of  the  art  of  depicting  human  nature 
was  very  great.  Harriet's  diary  of  the  period 
when  she  was  preparing  to  write  Deerbrook, 
shows  that  she  re-read  Miss  Austen's  novels, 
and  found  them  "wonderfully  beautiful."  This 
judgment  she  annexed  to  Emma;  and  again, 
after  recording  her  new  reading  of  Pride  and 
Prejudice,  she  added,  "  I  think  it  as  clever  as 
before ;  but  Miss  Austen  seems  wonderfully 
afraid  of  pathos.  I  long  to  try."  When  she  did 
"try,"  she,' either  intentionally  or  unconsciously, 
but  very  decidedly,  modelled  her  style  on  Miss 
Austen's.  But  the  two  women  were  essentially 
different.  Harriet  Martineau  had  an  original 
mind  ;  she  did  wrong,  and  prepared  the  retribu- 
tion of  failure  for  herself,  in  imitating  at  all  ; 
and  Jane  Austen  was  one  of  the  last  persons  she 
should  have  imitated. 


FIVE  ACTIVE    YEARS.  153 

The  principal  reasons  for  the  inferiority  of 
Deerbrook,  however,  are  found  in  her  personal 
history.  Three  months  after  its  publication,  she 
was  utterly  prostrated  by  an  illness  which  had 
undoubtedly  been  slowly  growing  upon  her  for 
long  before.  Thus,  she  wrote  her  novel  under 
the  depression  and  failure  of  strength  caused  by 
this  malady.  The  illness  itself  was  partly  the 
result  of  what  further  tended  to  make  her  work 
poor  in  quality  —  the  domestic  anxieties,  mis- 
eries and  heart-burnings  of  that  period. 

The  three  anxious  members  of  her  family 
were  at  this  time  upon  her  hands.  That  brother 
who  had  succeeded  to  the  father's  business, 
and  in  whose  charge  it  had  failed,  was  at  this 
time  in  London.  Before  the  weaving  business 
stopped,  Henry  Martineau  was  engaged  ;  but 
the  girl  broke  off  the  affair  in  consequence  of 
the  downfall  of  his  pecuniary  prospects.  Henry 
then  undertook  a  wine-merchant's  business,  and 
wretched  with  the  mortification  of  his  double 
failure  in  purse  and  in  heart,  he  yielded  to  the 
temptations  of  his  new  employment,  and  became 
intemperate.  During  the  time  that  Deerbrook 
was  being  written,  he  was  living  with  his  mother 
and  sister  in  London.  At  the  same  time  Mrs. 
Martineau,  now  nearing  seventy  years  old,  was 
becoming  blind.  The  natural  irritability  of  her 
temper  was  thus  increased.  The  heart-wearing 


154  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

trials  of  a  home  with  two  such  inmates  were 
made  greater  to  Harriet  by  the  fact  that  an 
aged  aunt  also  lived  with  them,  who,  besides 
the  many  cares  exacted  for  the  well-being  of 
age,  added  to  Harriet's  troubles  by  the  neces- 
sity of  shielding  her  from  the  tempers  and 
depressions  of  the  other  two. 

It  was  in  this  home  that  Harriet  Martineau 
did  all  the  work  that  has  now  been  recorded 
after  her  return  from  America.  No  one  who 
has  the  least  conception  of  how  imperatively 
necessary  domestic  peace  and  comfort  are  for 
the  relief  of  the  brain  taxed  with  literary  labor, 
will  be  surprised  to  hear  that  Harriet's  strength 
and  spirits  failed  during  all  that  summer  and 
winter  in  which  she  was  writing  Deerbrook,  and 
that  presently  her  health  completely  broke 
down. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

FIVE   YEARS    OF    ILLNESS   AND   THE    MESMERIC 
RECOVERY. 

ALMOST  immediately  after  the  publication  of 
Deerbrook  Harriet  started  for  a  Continental 
tour.  She  was  to  escort  an  invalid  cousin  to 
Switzerland,  and  afterwards  to  travel  through 
Italy  with  two  other  friends.  But  her  illness 
became  so  severe  by  the  time  that  she  reached 
Venice  that  the  remainder  of  the  journey  had  to 
be  abandoned.  Under  medical  advice,  a  couch 
was  fitted  up  in  the  travelling  carriage,  and 
upon  it,  lifted  in  and  out  at  every  stage,  she 
returned  to  England  and  was  conveyed  to  her 
sister's  at  Newcastle-on-Tyne.  In  the  autumn 
of  that  same  year  (1839)  she  took  up  her  abode 
in  Front  street,  Tynemouth,  in  order  to  remain 
under  the  medical  care  of  her  brother-in-law, 
Mr.  Greenhow  of  Newcastle. 

Her  physical  sufferings  during  the  next  five 
years  were  very  severe,  and  almost  incessant. 
She  could  not  go  out  of  the  house,  and  alter- 
nated only  between  her  bed  in  one  room  and  her 


156  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

couch  in  another.  From  her  sick-room  window 
she  overlooked  a  narrow  space  of  down,  the  ruins 
of  the  priory,  the  harbor  with  its  traffic,  and  the 
sea.  On  the  farther  side  of  the  harbor  she 
could  discern  through  the  telescope  a  railroad, 
a  spreading  heath,  and,  on  the  hills  which 
bounded  the  view,  two  or  three  farms.  To  this 
outlook  she,  whose  life  had  been  hitherto  spent 
so  actively,  and  in  the  midst  of  such  a  throng  of 
society,  found  herself  confined  for  a  term  of  five 
years.  At  the  same  time  her  pain  was  so  great 
that  she  was  compelled  to  take  opiates  daily. 
"  I  have  observed,  with  inexpressible  shame, 
that  with  the  newspaper  in  my  hand,  no  details 
of  the  peril  of  empires,  or  of  the  starving  mis- 
eries of  thousands,  could  keep  my  eye  from  the 
watch  before  me,  or  detain  my  attention  one 
second  beyond  the  time  when  I  might  have  my 
opiate.  For  two  years,  too,  I  wished  and  in- 
tended to  dispense  with  my  opiate  for  once,  to 
try  how  much  there  was  to  bear,  and  how  I 
should  bear  it ;  but  I  never  did  it,  strong  as  was 
the  shame  of  always  yielding.  I  am  convinced 
that  there  is  no  more  possibility  of  becoming 
inured  to  acute  agony  of  body,  than  to  par- 
oxysms of  remorse  —  the  severest  of  moral 
pains.  A  familiar  pain  becomes  more  and 
more  dreaded,  instead  of  becoming  more  lightly 
esteemed  in  proportion  to  its  familiarity.  The 


FIVE    YEARS  OF  ILLNESS.  157 

pain  itself  becomes  more  odious,  more  oppres- 
sive, more  feared  in  proportion  to  the  accumula- 
tion of  experience  of  weary  hours,  in  proportion 
to  the  aggregate  of  painful  associations  which 
every  visitation  revives."  * 

Some  indication  of  what  she  endured  in  those 
weary  years  is  given  in  this  quotation.  If  we 
had  to  rely  upon  the  inferences  to  be  drawn  from 
the  amount  of  work  which  she  did  in  her  sick- 
room, we  should  naturally  suppose  the  suffering 
not  to  have  been  very  great ;  for  she  produced, 
in  the  midst  of  her  illness,  as  much  and  as 
noble  work  as  we  look  for  from  the  most  active 
persons  in  ordinary  health. 

The  first  business  of  the  sick-room  life  was  to 
write  both  an  article  for  publication,  and  a 
number  of  letters  of  personal  appeal  to  friends, 
on  behalf  of  Oberlin  College,  an  institution 
which  was  being  founded  in  America  for  the 
education  of  pe'rsons  of  color  of  both  sexes, 
and  of  the  students  who  had  been  turned  out  of 
Lane  College  for  their  advocacy  of  anti-slavery 
principles. 

The  next  undertaking  was  another  novel ;  or, 
rather,  a  history,  imaginatively  treated,  of  the 
negro  revolution  in  San  Domingo.  Toussaint 
L'Ouverture,  the  leader  of  the  revolution  and  the 
president  of  the  black  Republic  of  Hayti,  was 

*  Life  in  the  Sick-Room. 


158  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

the  hero  of  this  story.  The  Hour  and  the  Man, 
as  a  mere  novel,  is  vastly  superior  to  Deerbrook. 
Harriet  wrote  it,  however,  rather  as  a  contribu- 
tion to  the  same  anti-slavery  cause  for  Which  she 
had  written  her  preceding  article,  believing 
that  it  would  be  useful  to  that  cause  to  show 
forth  the  capacity  and  the  high  moral  character 
which  had  been  displayed  by  a  negro  of  the 
blackest  shade  when  in  possession  of  power. 
The  work  was  begun  in  May,  1840,  and  pub- 
lished in  November  of  the  same  year. 

Lord  Jeffrey,  in  a  familiar  private  letter  to 
Empson,  his  successor  in  the  editorship  of  the 
Edinburgh  Review,  wrote  thus  of  The  Hour  and 
the  Man  :  — 

I  have  read  Harriet's  first  volume,  and  give 
in  my  adhesion  to  her  Black  Prince  with  all  my 
heart  and  soul.  The  book  is  really  not  only 
beautiful  and  touching,  but  noble ;  and  I  do 
not  recollect  when  I  have  been  more  charmed, 
whether  by  very  sweet  and  eloquent  writing 
and  glowing  description,  or  by  elevated  as  well 
as  tender  sentiments.  .  .  .  The  book  is  calcu- 
lated to  make  its  readers  better,  and  does  great 
honor  to  the  heart  as  well  as  the  talent  and 
fancy  of  the  author.  I  would  go  a  long  way  to 
kiss  the  hem  of  her  garment,  or  the  hand  that 
delineated  this  glowing  and  lofty  representation 
of  purity  and  noble  virtue.  And  she  must  not 
only  be  rescued  from  all  debasing  anxieties 
about  her  subsistence,  but  placed  in  a  station  of 


FIVE    YEARS  OF  ILLNESS.  159 

affluence  and  honor  ;  though  I  believe  she  truly 
cares  for  none  of  these  things.  It  is  sad  to 
think  that  she  suffers  so  much,  and  may  even 
be  verging  to  dissolution. 

Even  the  morose  and  ungracious  Carlyle, 
writing  to  Emerson  of  this  book,  is  obliged  to 
say  "  It  is  beautiful  as  a  child's  heart ;  and  in  so 
shrewd  a  brain  ! "  While  Florence  Nightingale 
declares  that  she  "can  scarcely  refrain  from 
thinking  of  it  as  the  greatest  of  historical 
romances." 

The  allusion  in  the  latter  part  of  Lord  Jeffrey's 
letter  was  to  a  proposal  just  then  made  to  give 
Harriet  Martineau  one  of  the  Civil  List  literary 
pensions.  This  idea  had  been  mooted  first  dur- 
ing the  progress  of  her  Illustrations,  and  again 
after  her  return  from  America ;  but  upon  each 
occasion  she  had  stated  privately  that  she  would 
not  be  willing  to  accept  it.  She  replied  from 
Tynemouth  to  the  same  effect  to  Mr.  Hutton, 
who  wrote  to  inquire  if  she  would  now  be  thus 
assisted.  Her  objection  was,  in  the  first  place, 
one  of  principle ;  she  disapproved  of  the  money 
of  the  people  being  dispensed  in  any  pensions  at 
the  sole  will  of  the  Ministry,  instead  of  being 
conferred  directly  by  the  representatives  of  the 
people.  Her  second  reason  was,  that  after 
accepting  she  would  feel  herself  bound  to  the 
Ministers,  and  would  be  understood  by  the  pub- 


160  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

lie  to  be  so  bound,  and  would  thus  suffer  a  loss 
of  both  freedom  and  usefulness  during  whatever 
life  might  remain  to  her.  Lord  Melbourne,  a 
few  months  later,  in  July,  1841,  made  her  an 
explicit  offer  of  a  pension  of  ^150  per  annum, 
and  her  answer  to  the  Minister  was  substan- 
tially the  same  as  to  her  friend.  She  said  that 
while  taxation  was  levied  so  unequally,  and 
while  Parliament  had  no  voice  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  pensions,  she  would  rather  receive  public 
aid  from  the  parish,  if  necessary,  than  as  a  pen- 
sioner. She  added  an  earnest  plea  that  all  influ- 
ential persons  who  held  themselves  indebted  on 
public  grounds  to  any  writer,  would  show  that 
gratitude  by  endeavoring  to  make  better  copy- 
right arrangements  and  foreign  treaties,  so  as  to 
secure  to  authors  the  full,  due  and  independent 
reward  of  their  efforts. 

The  rare  (perhaps  mistaken)  generosity  of  this 
refusal  can  only  be  appreciated  by  bearing  in 
mind  that  she  had  invested  a  large  part  of  her 
earnings  a  few  years  before  in  a  form  from  which 
she  was  now  receiving  no  return.  During  her 
illness  she  was  really  in  want  of  money,  so  far  as 
to  have  to  accept  assistance  from  relatives.  For 
her  charities  she  partly  provided  by  doing  fancy- 
work,  sending  subscriptions  both  in  this  form 
and  in  the  shape  of  articles  for  publication  to  the 
anti-slavery  cause  in  America. 


FIVE    YEARS  OF  ILLNESS.  l6l 

In  the  early  part  of  1841  she  began  a  series  of 
four  children's  stories,  which  were  published 
under  the  general  title  of  The  Playfellow. 
These  admirable  tales  are  still  amongst  the  best- 
known  and  most  popular  of  her  writings  ;  simple, 
vivid  and  interesting,  they  are  really  model  chil- 
dren's stories,  and  it  would  have  been  quite 
impossible  for  any  reader  to  imagine  that  they 
were  written  by  an  invalid,  in  constant  suffer- 
ing. Settlers  at  Home  was  the  first  one  written, 
The  Prince  and  the  Peasant  came  next ;  then 
Feats  on  the  Fjord ;  and,  finally,  that  one  from 
which  I  quoted  largely  in  an  early  chapter,  The 
Crofton  Boys.  By  the  time  the  last-named  was 
finished  she  was  very  ill,  and  believed  that  she 
should  never  write  another  book. 

Her  interest  in  all  public  affairs  continued, 
nevertheless,  to  be  as  keen  as  ever.  In  1841 
she  wrote  for  publication  a  long  letter  to  sup- 
port the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society  under 
a  secession  from  its  ranks  of  a  number  of  per- 
sons, chiefly  clerical,  who  objected,  of  all 
things,  to  women  being  allowed  to  be  members 
of  the  society !  Another  piece  of  work  which 
she  did  for  the  public  benefit  was  by  a  course 
of  correspondence,  full  of  delicate  tact,  to  per- 
sonally reconcile  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  Mr.  Cob- 
den,  and  so  to  pave  the  way  for  the  amicable 


162  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

work  of  the  two  statesmen  in  the  repeal  of  the 
Corn  Laws. 

In  1843,  some  of  her  friends  who  knew  her 
circumstances,  and  that  she  had  refused  a  pen- 
sion, collected  money  to  present  her  with  a  tes- 
timonal.  ;£  1,400,  thus  obtained,  was  invested 
for  her  benefit  in  the  Terminable  Long  Annui- 
ties, and  a  considerable  sum  besides  was 
expended  in  a  present  of  plate.  The  Ladies 
Lambton  (the  eldest  of  whom,  as  Countess  of 
Elgin,  was  afterwards  one  of  her  warmest 
friends)  went  over  to  Tynemouth  to  use  the 
plate  with  her  for  the  first  time,  and  "  it  was  a 
testimonial  fete." 

It  was  about  this  time,  too,  that  the  personal 
acquaintance,  destined  to  become  an  intimate 
association  in  work,  between  Harriet  Martineau 
and  Florence  Nightingale  was  commenced. 
Miss  '  Martineau's  younger  sister  Ellen  had 
been  governess  in  Miss  Nightingale's  family. 
Sick-nursing  occupied  Florence  Nightingale's 
hands  and  heart  long  before  the  Crimean  War 
made  her  famous,  and  Harriet  Martineau  was 
one  of  the  sick  to  whom  she  ministered  in 
those  earlier  days. 

Towards  the  end  of  1843,  Harriet's  mind 
had  accumulated  a  store  of  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings which  imperatively  pressed  to  be  poured 
forth.  She  wrote  then,  in  about  six  weeks,  her 


FIVE    YEARS  OF  ILLNESS.  163 

volume  of  essays,  Life  in  the  Sick-Room.  The 
book  was  published  under  the  pseudonym  of 
"An  Invalid,"  but  was  immediately  attributed 
to  her  on  all  hands.  It  is  a  most  interesting 
record  of  the  high  thoughts  and  feelings  by 
which  so  melancholy  an  experience  as  years  of 
suffering,  of  an  apparently  hopeless  character, 
can  be  elevated,  and  made  productive  of  bene- 
fit to  the  sufferer's  own  nature.  Incidentally 
there  is  much  wise  counsel  in  the  volume  for 
those  who  have  the  care  of  invalids  of  this 
class. 

Amidst  the  many  expressions  of  admiration 
and  interest  which  this  work  drew  forth,  the 
following  is  perhaps  most  worthy  of  preserva- 
tion because  of  the  source  whence  it  came. 
Mr.  Quillinan,  Wordsworth's  son-in-law,  wrote 
as  follows  to  his  friend,  Henry  Crabbe  Robin- 
son, on  December  9,  1843  :  — 

Mr.  Wordsworth,  Mrs.  Wordsworth  and  Miss 
Fenwick  have  been  quite  charmed,  affected, 
and  instructed  by  the  invalid's  volume.  .  .  . 
Mrs.  Wordsworth,  after  a  few  pages  were  read, 
at  once  pronounced  it  to  be  Miss  Martineau's 
production,  and  concluded  that  you  knew  all 
about  it  and  caused  it  to  be  sent  hither.  In 
some  of  the  most  eloquent  parts  it  stops  short 
of  their  wishes  and  expectations  :  but  they  all 
agree  that  it  is  a  rare  book,  doing  honor  to  the 
head  and  heart  of  your  able  and  interesting 


1 64  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

friend.  Mr.  Wordsworth  praised  it  with  more 
unreserve  —  I  may  say,  with  'more  earnestness 
—  than  is  usual  with  him.  The  serene  and 
heavenly-minded  Miss  Fenwick  was  prodigal 
of  her  admiration.  But  Mrs.  Wordsworth's 
was  the  crowning  praise.  She  said  —  and  you 
know  how  she  would  say  it  —  "I  wish  I  had 
read  exactly  such  a  book  as  that  years  ago  !  " 
...  It  is  a  genuine  and  touching  series  of 
meditations  by  an  invalid  not  sick  in  mind  or 
heart.* 

From  one  of  the  letters  with  which  Mr. 
Henry  G.  Atkinson  has  favored  me  and  my 
readers,  I  find  that  she  wrote  a  chapter  for  that 
book,  which  undoubtedly  must  have  been  of 
the  deepest  interest,  but  which  was  not  pub- 
lished. 

LETTER  TO  MR.  ATKINSON. 
[Extract.]  November  19,  1872. 

DEAR  FRIEND: 

.  .  .  You  will  feel  at  once  how  earn- 
estly I  must  be  longing  for  death  —  I  who  never 
loved  life,  and  who  would  any  day  of  my  life 
have  rather  departed  than  stayed.  Well !  it  can 
hardly  go  on  very  much  longer  now.  But  I  do 
wish  it  was  permitted  to  us  to  judge  for  our- 
selves a  little  how  long  we  ought  to  carry  on 
the  task  which  we  never  desired  and  could  not 
refuse,  and  how  soon  we  may  fairly  relieve  our 
comrades  from  the  burden  of  taking  care  of  us. 

* Diary  and  Letters  of  H.  C.  Robinson,  vol.  iii.,  p.  235. 


FIVE    YEARS  OF  ILLNESS.  165 

I  wonder  whether  the  chapter  I  wrote  about 
this  for  the  "  Sick-Room"  book  will  ever  see  the 
light.  I  rather  wish  it  may,  because  I  believe 
it  utters  what  many  people  think  and  feel.  I 
let  it  be  omitted  from  that  book  because  it 
might  perhaps  injure  the  impression  of  the  rest 
of  the  volume  ;  but,  so  far  as  I  remember  it,  it 
is  worth  considering,  and  therefore  publishing. 

I  have  made  such  inquiries  as  I  could  (of  one 
of  Miss  Martineau's  executors  and  others),  but 
can  get  no  tidings  of  this  missing  chapter  on 
Euthanasia.  It  was  just  such  a  subject  — need- 
ing for  its  discussion,  courage,  calmness,  com- 
mon sense,  and  logic,  combined  with  sympathy, 
and  a  high  standard  of  moral  beauty  and  good- 
ness—  as  she  would  have  been  sure  to  treat 
rarely  well.  There  is  one  passage  in  Life  in 
the  Sick-Room,  bearing  upon  the  question  ;  she 
observes  that  the  great  reason  why  hopeless 
invalids  so  commonly  endure  on  when  they  are 
longing  for  the  rest  of  insensibility,  is  the  un- 
certainty as  to  whether  they  may  not  find  them- 
selves still  conscious  in  another  state.  Her  own 
history  was  to  supply  a  stronger  reason  still 
against  the  irrevocable  action  being  taken  upon 
our  rash  assumptions  that  our  work  and  our  use- 
fulness in  life  are  ended.  As  she  truly  observed : 
"  No  one  knows  when  the  spirits  of  men  begin 
to  work,  or  when  they  leave  off,  or  whether  they 


1 66  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

work  best  when  their  bodies  are  weak,  or  when 
they  are  strong.  Every  human  creature  that 
has  a  spirit  in  him  must  therefore  betaken  care 
of,  and  kept  alive  as  long  as  possible,  that  his 
spirit  may  do  all  it  can  in  the  world."  So  she 
wrote  at  that  very  time  —  showing  how  her  mind 
was  pondering  every  view  of  the  subject. 

The  sentence  just  quoted  is  from  Dawn 
Island,  a  little  one-hundred  paged  story  which 
she  wrote  in  the  midst  of  her  suffering,  as  her 
contribution  to  the  funds  of  the  Anti-Corn  Law 
League.  It  was  printed  and  sold  for  the  benefit 
of  that  league,  at  the  great  bazaar  of  1845. 

After  the  publication  of  the  "Sick-Room" 
book,  she  commenced  the  writing  of  her  autobi- 
ography —  not  as  it  was  published  afterwards, 
be  it  understood — for  she  was  too  ill  to  make 
much  progress  with  it,  and  soon  stopped  writ- 
ing. But  she  never  became  too  ill  to  feel  and 
to  show  a  vivid  interest  in  every  cause  that  had 
the  happiness  and  progress  of  mankind  for  its 
object.  She  kept  up  an  extensive  correspond- 
ence with  those  engaged  in  the  world's  work, 
and  such  personal  efforts  for  public  objects  as 
those  above  mentioned  she  frequently  exerted 
—  sometimes  over-exerted  —  herself  to  make. 
Her  body  was  chained  to  two  small  rooms  ;  but 
her  mind,  with  all  its  powers  and  affections,  yet 
swept  freely  through  the  universe.  No  one 


MESMERIC  RECOVERY.  167 

would  have  been  more  impatient  than  she  her- 
self of  any  pretence  that  she  lived  incessantly 
on  a  high  plane  of  lofty  emotions,  where  pain 
ceased  to  be  felt,  or  that  her  care  for  others  was 
so  extraordinary  that  self-regard  was  swallowed 
up  in  the  depths  of  altruism.  I  have  quoted  her 
candid  revelations  about  her  sufferings  and  her 
opiates,  to  avoid  the  possibility  of  conveying  an 
impression  that  she  was  thus  guilty  of  hypocrisy 
or  affectation.  But  the  wide  interests  and  the 
sympathies  with  mankind  that  were  the  solace 
of  her  sick  life,  and  the  inspiration  of  the  work 
which  she  did  so  heavily,  and  yet  so  continu- 
ously, amidst  her  pain,  assuredly  shall  be  marked 
with  the  reverence  that  they  merit. 

In  1844  the  long  illness  came  to  an  end. 
Harriet  Martineau  was  restored  to  perfect 
health  by  means  of  mesmerism.  Such  a  cure 
of  such  a  person  could  not  fail  to  make  a  great 
sensation.  Not  only  had  she  a  wide  circle  of 
personal  acquaintances,  but  she  had  deeply  im- 
pressed the  public  at  large  with  a  sense  of  her 
perfect  sanity,  her  calm  common-sense,  and  her 
practical  wisdom,  as  well  as  with  a  conviction 
of  her  truthfulness  and  accuracy.  Accordingly, 
as  the  Zoist  (Dr.  Elliotson's  mesmeric  periodi- 
cal) declared  at  the  time : — 

The  subject  which  the  critic,  a  few  months 
since,  would  not  condescend  to  notice,  has  been 


1 68  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

elevated  to  a  commanding  position.  It  is  the 
topic  with  which  the  daily  papers  and  the  weekly 
periodicals  are*  filled  ;  in  fact,  all  classes  are 
moved  by  one  common  consent,  and  mesmerism, 
from  the  palace  to  the  smallest  town  in  the 
United  Kingdom,  is  the  scientific  question  ab- 
sorbing public  attention.  .  .  .  The  immediate 
cause  of  all  this  activity,  is  the  publication  of 
the  case  of  Miss  Martineau,  who,  after  five  years' 
incessant  suffering  and  confinement  to  her 
couch,  is  now  well. 

I  have  thought  that  what  needs  to  be  said 
here  ot'the  medical  aspect  and  course  of  this 
period  of  suffering,  and  of  the  final  cure,  will 
best  be  said  consecutively  ;  and,  therefore,  we 
will  look  back  briefly  over  the  five  busy  but 
suffering  years,  the  work  of  which  has  now  been 
recorded,  and  see  what  were  the  physical  con- 
ditions under  which  that  work  was  executed. 

Her  health  had  been  declining  gradually  from 
1834  to  1839;  there  was  a  slow  but  a  marked 
deterioration  in  strength,  and  her  spirits  became 
depressed.  In  April  of  the  latter  year,  when 
she  undertook  a  continental  journey  the  fatigue 
of  travelling  suddenly  aggravated  her  condition  ; 
and  in  Venice,  early  in  June,  she  was  compelled 
to  consult  a  physician,  Dr.  Nardo.  She  was 
found  to  be  suffering  from  a  tumor,  with  enlarg- 
ment  and  displacement  of  an  important  organ, 
all  this  causing  great  internal  pain,  accompanied 


MESMERIC  RECOVERY.  l69 

by  frequent  weakening  hemorrhages.  She  was 
carried  back  to  England  by  easy  stages,  and  lying 
on  a  couch,  and  reached  Newcastle-on-Tyne  at 
the  end  of  July,  1839.  She  stayed  for  some 
time  at  the  house  in  that  town  of  her  eldest 
sister,  and  then  was  removed  only  nine  miles  off, 
in  order  that  her  brother-in-law,  Mr.  T.  M. 
Greenhow,  F.  R.  C.  S.,  might  undertake  the 
medical  care  of  her  case.  Until  October,  she 
persevered  in  taking  walking  exercise ;  but  the 
pain,  sickness  and  breathlessness  which  accom- 
panied this  were  so  distressing,  that  soon  after 
her  removal  to  Tynemouth  she  ceased  to  go  out 
of  doors,  or  even  to  descend  the  stairs. 

Mr.  Greenhow's  prescriptions  were  confined 
at  first  to  opiates,  and  other  medicines  to  alle- 
viate symptoms.  The  opiates  were  not  taken  in 
excess  —  as,  indeed,  the  books  written  in  the 
period  would  conclusively  prove.  The  patient's 
suffering  was  so  great,  however,  that  extreme 
recourse  to  such  palliatives  might  have  been 
forgiven.  She  could  not  raise  the  right  leg; 
and  could  neither  sit  up  for  the  faintness  which 
then  ensued,  nor  lie  down  with  ease  because  of 
the  pain  in  her  back.  "  She  could  not  sleep  at 
night  till  she  devised  a  plan  of  sleeping  under  a 
basket,  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  the  weight 
of  the  bed-clothes  from  her  ;  and  even  then  she 
was  scared  by  horrors  all  night,  and  reduced  by 


I/O  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

sickness  during  the  day.  This  sickness  in- 
creased to  such  a  degree  that  for  two  years  she 
was  extremely  low  from  want  of  food." 

At  the  end  of  two  years,  that  is  to  say,  in 
September,  1841,  Sir  Charles  Clarke,  M.  D., 
was  called  in  consultation  ;  and  he  prescribed 
iodine,  remarking  at  the  same  time  that,  in  his 
view,  such  a  case  as  hers  was  practically  incura- 
ble, and  admitting  that  he  "  had  tried  iodine  in 
an  infinite  number  of  such  cases,  and  never 
knew  it  avail."  For  the  next  three  years  Miss 
Martineau  took  three  grains  per  diem  of  iodide 
of  iron.  It  relieved  the  sickness ;  but  up  to 
April,  1844  (two  and  a  half  years  from  the  com- 
mencement of  its  administration),  Mr.  Green- 
how  did  not  pretend  that  any  improvement  in 
the  physical  condition  had  taken  place.  In 
that  month,  as  he  afterwards  said,  he  believed 
he  found  a  slight  change,  "but  he  was  not 
sure  "  ;  and,  if  any,  it  was  very  trifling.  The 
patient,  on  her  part,  was  quite  convinced  that 
her  state  then  was  in  no  way  altered. 

More  than  once  different  friends  —  amongst 
them  Lord  Lytton,  Mr.  Hallam,  and  the  Basil 
Montagus — had  urged  her  to  try  mesmerism  ; 
but  she  had  thought  it  due  to  her  relative  to 
give  his  orthodox  medicines  the  fullest  trial, 
before  taking  herself  out  of  his  hands  in  such  a 
way.  In  June,  1844,  however,  Mr.  Greenhow 


MESMERIC  RECOVERY.  I /I 

himself  suggested  that  she  should  be  mesmer- 
ized. Of  course,  so  advised,  she  consented  to 
make  the  trial.  A  Mr.  Hall,  brought  by  Mr. 
Greenhow,  accordingly  mesmerized  her  for  the 
first  time  on  June  22d,  1844,  and  again  on  the 
following  day. 

The  patient  thought  she  experienced  some 
relief,  but  did  not  feel  quite  sure.  "On  occa- 
sion of  a  perfectly  new  experience,  scepticism 
and  self-distrust  are  strong."*  The  next  day, 
however,  set  her  doubts  at  rest.  Mr.  Hall  was 
unable  to  come  to  her,  and  she  asked  her  maid 
to  make  the  passes  in  his  stead. 

Within  one  minute,  the  twilight  and  phos- 
phoric lights  appeared ;  and  in  two  or  three 
more  a  delicious  sensation  of  ease  spread  through 
me  —  a  cool  comfort,  before  which  all  pain  and 
distress  gave  way,  oozing  out,  as  it  were,  at  the 
soles  of  my  feet.  During  that  hour,  and 
almost  the  whole  evening,  I  could  no  more 
help  exclaiming  with  pleasure  than  a  person  in 
torture  crying  out  with  pain.  I  became  hungry, 
and  ate  with  relish  for  the  first  time  for  five 
years.  There  was  no  heat,  oppression,  or  sick- 
ness during  the  seance,  nor  any  disorder  after- 
wards. During  the  whole  evening,  instead  of 
the  lazy,  hot  ease  of  opiates,  under  which  pain 
is  felt  to  lie  in  wait,  I  experienced  something  of 
the  indescribable  sensations  of  health,  which  I 
had  quite  lost  and  forgotten. 

*This  and  the  succeeding  quotations  are  from  her  "Letters 
on  Mesmerism,"  published  in  the  Athenaum,  1845. 


172  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

Her  dear  friend  during  all  the  years  that 
remained  to  her  —  Mr.  Henry  G.  Atkinson  f  — 
had  just  come  into  her  life.  His  interest  in  her 
case  was  enlisted  by  their  mutual  friend,  Basil 
Montagus ;  and  Mr.  Atkinson  undertook  to 
direct  the  mesmeric  treatment  by  correspond- 
ence. Margaret,  the  maid,  continued  the  mes- 
merism till  September,  and  then  Mr.  Atkinson 
induced  his  friend  Mrs.  Montague  Wynyard,  the 
young  widow  of  a  clergyman,  to  undertake  the 
case.  "  In  pure  zeal  and  benevolence  this  lady 
came  to  me,  and  has  been  with  me  ever  since. 
When  I  found  myself  able  to  repose  on  the 
knowledge  and  power  (mental  and  moral)  of 
my  mesmerist  the  last  impediments  to  my 
progress  were  cleared  away  and  I  improved 
accordingly." 

t  As  this  friendship  had  a  profound  influence  upon  Harriet's 
after  thought  and  work,  some  description  of  Mr.  Atkinson 
seems  in  place ;  and  I  need  offer  that  gentleman  no  apology 
for  merely  quoting  what  has  appeared  in  print  before  about 
him.  Margaret  Fuller  wrote  thus  of  him  in  a  private  letter,  in 
1846:  — 

"Mr.  Atkinson  is  a  man  about  thirty,  in  the  fullness  of  his 
powers,  tall  and  finely  formed,  with  a  head  for  Leonardo  to 
paint  ;  mild  and  composed,  but  powerful  and  sagacious; 
he  does  not  think,  but  perceives  and  acts.  He  is  intimate 
with  artists,  having  studied  architecture  himself  as  a  profession ; 
but  has  some  fortune  on  which  he  lives.  Sometimes  stationary 
and  acting  in  the  affairs  of  other  men  ;  sometimes  wandering 
about  the  world  and  learning  ;  he  seems  bound  by  no  tie,  yet 
looks  as  if  he  had  relatives  in  every  place." — Memoirs  of 
Margaret  Fuller,  by  Emerson. 


MESMERIC  RECOVERY.  1 73 

On  December  the  6th  Mr.  Greenhow  found 
his  patient  quite  well,  and  about  to  leave  the 
place  of  her  imprisonment,  and  start  on  a  series 
of  friendly  visits.  He  declared,  notwithstand- 
ing, that  firstly,  her  physical  condition  was  not 
essentially  different  from  what  it  had  been  all 
through  ;  secondly,  that  the  change  in  her  sen- 
sations arose  from  the  iodine  suddenly  and 
miraculously  becoming  more  effective,  and  not 
from  mesmerism. 

Such  is  the  medical  history,  so  interesting  to 
all  physiological  students  and  to  all  sufferers  of 
the  same  class,  of  Harriet  Martineau's  five 
years'  illness  and  recovery.  My  business  is 
simply  to  state  facts,  and  I  need  not  here 
undertake  any  dissertation  upon  mesmerism. 
It  is  sufficient  to  add  that  only  those  who  are 
unaware  of  the  profundity  of  our  ignorance 
(up  to  the  present  day)  about  the  action  of  the 
nervous  system,  and  still  more  about  what  life 
really  is,  can  be  excused  for  rash  jeering  and 
hasty  incredulity  in  such  a  case  as  this. 

Harriet  Martineau  knew  that  she  was  well 
again,  and  it  seemed  to  her  a  clear  duty  to 
ma1<e  as  public  as  possible  the  history  of  how 
her  recovery  had  been  brought  about.  She 
did  so  by  six  letters  to  the  Athen&um;  and 
these  were  reprinted  in  pamphlet  form.  Mr. 
Greenhow  was  thereupon  guilty  of  one  of  the 


174  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

most  serious  professional  faults  possible.  He 
also  published  an  account  of  The  Case  of  Miss 
H.  M.,  in  a  shilling  pamphlet,  giving  the  most 
minute  and  painful  details  of  her  illness,  and 
respecting  no  confidence  that  had  been  reposed 
in  his  medical  integrity.  The  result  of  this 
conduct  on  his  part  was  that  his  patient  felt 
herself  compelled  to  break  off  all  future  inter- 
course with  a  man  capable  of  such  objection- 
able action. 

It  may  be  added  here  that  the  cure  was  a 
permanent  one.*  She  enjoyed  ten  years  of 
health  so  good  that  she  declared  it  taught  her 
that  in  no  previous  period  of  her  life  had  she 
ever  been  well.  It  may  be  as  well  to  say  that 
she  never  wavered  in  her  assurance  that  her 
cure  was  worked  by  mesmerism,  and  that  the 
cure  was  complete.  All  dispute  about  her  firm 

*  I  find  there  is  a  widespread  impression  that  she  even- 
tually died  of  the  same  tumor  that  she  supposed  to  have  been 
cured  at  this  time.  It  should  be  distinctly  stated,  however, 
that  if  this  were  the  case,  Mr.  Greenhow  and  Sir  C.  Clarke 
were  both  utterly  wrong  in  their  diagnosis  in  1840.  I  have 
read  Mr.  Greenhow's  Report  of  the  Case  of  Miss  H.  M.,  and 
the  notes  of  the  post-mortem  lie  before  me  —  kindly  lent  me 
by  the  surgeon,  Mr.  King,  now  of  Bedford  Park,  who  made 
the  autopsy.  I  find  that  the  organ  which  Mr.  Greenhow  and 
his  consultant  both  stated  to  be  the  seat  of  the  disease,  enlarge- 
ment and  tumor,  in  1840,  is  described  as  being  found  "particu- 
larly small  and  unaffected  "  after  death. 


MESMERIC  RECOVERY.  175 

conviction  on   this  point  may  be  set  at   rest  by 
the  following  extracts  from 

LETTERS  TO  MR.  ATKINSON. 
[Extract.]  July  6,  1874. 

Notices  of  my  mesmeric  experience  in  ill- 
ness have  revived  an  anxiety  of  mine  about 
what  may  happen  when  I  am  gone,  if  certain 
parties  should  bring  up  the  old  falsehoods  again, 
when  I  am  not  here  to  assert  and  prove  the 
truth.  I  don't  in  the  least  suppose  you  can 
help  me,  any  more  than  Mrs.  Chapman,  whom 
I  have  got  to  look  over  a  box  of  papers  of  mine 
deposited  with  her.  But  I  had  rather  tell  you 
what  is  on  my  mind  about  it. 

I  wrote,  at  Tynemouth,  a  diary  of  my  case 
and  experience  under  the  mesmeric  experiment 
(experiment  desired  and  proposed  by  Mr.  Green- 
how  himself).  He  read  it  when  finished,  and  so 
did  several  of  my  friends.  There  are  two  copies 
somewhere,  for,  not  wishing  to  show  certain 
passages,  rather  saucy,  about  the  Greenhow 
prejudices  and  behavior,  I  accepted  Mrs. 
Wynyard's  kind  offer  to  copy  the  MS.,  omit- 
ting those  remarks.  Now  where  are  those 
MSS  ?  I  cannot  find  them,  nor  say  what  I  did 
with  them,  beyond  having  a  dim  notion  that 
they  (or  at  least  Mrs.  Wynyard's  copy)  were  put 
away  into  some  safe  place,  to  await  future 
chances.  I  perfectly  remember  the  look  of  the 
packet,  and  the  label  on  it,  etc.  When  I 
remember  what  was  said  after  reading  it,  by 
one  of  the  wisest  people  I  have  known,  I  am 
shocked  at  our  inability  to  find  it.  "  One  must 


176  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

dispute  anything  being  the  cause  of  anything, 
if  one  disputes  after  reading  this  statement, 
that  your  recovery  is  due  to  mesjnerism."  And 
now,  while  I  see  false  statements  of  the  "  facts," 
and  false  references  circulating,  as  at  present, 
I  cannot  find  my  own  narrative,  written  from 
day  to  day,  and  do  not  know  where  to  turn  next ! 
If  I  had  strength  I  would  turn  out  all  the 
papers  in  my  possession,  and  make  sure  for  my- 
self. Now,  dear  friend,  do  you  think  you  ever 
saw  that  statement  ? 

[Extract.]  ,    September  18,  1874. 

My  malady  was  absolutely  unlike  cancer,, and 
it  never  had  any  sort  of  relation  to  "malignant" 
disease.  The  doctors  called  it  "  indolent  tumor 
— most  probably  polypus."  Don't  you  remem- 
ber how,  at  that  very  time,  the  great  dispute  on 
Elliotson's  hands  was  whether  any  instance 
could  be  adduced  of  cure  of  organic  disease  by 
mesmerism  ?  Elliotson  was  nearly  certain,  but 
not  quite,  of  the  cure  of  a  cancer  case  in  his 
own  practice.  The  doctors  were  full  of  the  con- 
troversy, and  some  of  them  wrote  both  to  me 
and  to  Mr.  Greenhow  to  inquire  the  nature  of 
my  case,  whether  malignant  or  not.  Of  course 
we  both  replied  "  No."  It  would  be  a  dreadful 
misfortune  if  now  anybody  concerned  should 
tell  a  different  story.  Greenhow  is  still  living 
(aged  82)  and  all  alive ;  and  he  would  like 
nothing  better  than  to  get  hold  of  it,  and  bring 
out  another  indecent  pamphlet.  If  I  could  but 
lay  hands  on  the  diary  of  the  case,  written  at  the 
time,  what  a  security  it  would  be  ?  But  I  can 


MESMERIC  RECOVERY.  I// 

nowhere  find  it.  The  next  best  security  is 
turning  back  to  the  statement,  "Letters"  in 
the  Athenceum  of  the  autumn  of  1844.  Those 
"  Letters "  went  through  two  editions  when 
reprinted,  after  having  carried  those  numbers 
of  the  Athenamn  through  three  editions.  One 
would  think  the  narrative  must  be  accessible 
enough.  Above  all  things,  let  there  be  no  mis- 
take in  our  statements. 

It  ought  to  be  enough  for  observers  that  I 
had  ten  years  of  robust  health  after  that  recov- 
ery, walking  from  sixteen  to  twenty  miles  in  a 
day,  on  occasion,  and  riding  a  camel  in  the  heart 
of  Nubia,  and  hundreds  of  miles  on  horseback, 
through  Palestine  to  Damascus,  and  back  to  the 
Levant. 

I  have  written  so  much  because  I  could  not 
help  it.  I  shall  hardly  do  it  again.  I  will 
add  only  that  the  mesmerizing  began  in  June, 
1844,  and  the  cure  was  effected  before  the  fol- 
lowing Christmas. 

Dear  friend, 

I  am  yours  ever, 

H.  M. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE    HOME    LIFE. 

AT  forty-two  years  old,  Harriet  Martineau  found 
herself  free  for  the  first  time  to  form  and  take 
possession  of  a  home  of  her  own.  Now,  for  the 
first  time,  she  could  have  the  luxury  which  many 
girls  obtain  by  marriage  so  young  that  they 
spoil  it  to  themselves  and  others,  and  which  it 
is  as  natural  for  each  grown  woman  to  desire, 
irrespective  of  marriage,  as  it  is  for  a  fledged 
bird  to  leave  the  old  nest  —  a  house  and  a 
domestic  circle  in  which  she  could  be  the  organ- 
izing spirit,  where  the  home  arrangements 
should  be  of  her  own  ordering,  and  where  she 
could  have  the  privacy  and  self-management 
which  can  no  otherwise  be  enjoyed,  in  combina- 
tion with  the  exercise  of  that  housewifely  skill 
to  which  all  women  more  or  less  incline. 

The  beauty  of  the  scenery  led  her  to  fix  upon 
the  English  lakes  for  the  locality  in  which  to 
make  her  home,  and,  finding  no  suitable  house 
vacant,  she  resolved  to  build  one  for  herself. 
She  purchased  two  acres  of  land,  within  half-a- 


THE  HOME  LIFE.  1/9 

mile  of   the  village  of   Ambleside  ;    borrowed 
some   money   on   mortgage   from   a   well-to-do 
cousin  ;  had  the  plans  drawn  out  under  her  own, 
instructions,  and  watched  the  house  being  built 
so  that  it  should  suit  her  own  tastes. 

It  is  a  pretty  little  gabled  house,  built  of  gray 
stone,  and  stands  upon  a  small  rocky  eminence 
—  whence  its  name  "the  Knoll."  There  is 
enough  rock  to  hold  the  house,  and  to  allow  the 
formation  of  a  terrace  about  twenty  feet  wide  in 
front  of  the  windows ;  then  there  comes  the 
descent  of  the  face  of  the  rock.  At  the  foot  of 
the  rock  is  the  garden.  Narrow  flights  of  steps 
at  either  end  of  the  terrace  lead  down  to  the 
greensward  and  the  flower-beds  ;  in  the  centre 
of  these  is  a  gray  granite  sun-dial,  with  the 
characteristic  motto  around  it —  "Come  Light! 
Visit  me  !  "  To  the  left  is  the  gardener's  cot- 
tage, with  the  cow-house,  pig-stye  and  root-shed. 
The  front  of  the  house  looks  across  the  garden, 
and  over  the  valley  to  Loughrigg.  Its  back  is 
turned  to  the  road,  and  concealed  from  passers- 
by,  partly  by  the  growth  of  greenery,  and  partly 
by  the  Methodist  Chapel.  A  winding  path 
leads  up  from  the  road  to  the  house,  and  a  small 
path  forking  off  from  this  goes  round  past  the 
cottage  to  the  field  where  the  cows  used  to 
graze,  and  to  the  piece  of  land  that  was  appro- 
priated to  growing  the  roots  for  the  cows  and 
the  household  fruit  and  vegetables. 


180  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

Within,  "The  Knoll "  is  just  a  nice  little  resi- 
dence for  a  maiden  lady,  with  her  small  house- 
hold, and  room  for  an  occasional  guest.  You 
enter  by  a  covered  porch,  and  find  the  drawing- 
room  on  the  right  hand  of  the  hall.  It  is  a 
fairly  large  room,  and  remarkably  well-lighted ; 
there  was  a  window-tax  when  she  built,  but  she 
showed  her  faith  in  the  growth  of  political  com- 
mon-sense abrogating  so  mischievous  an  impost, 
by  building  in  anticipation  of  freedom  of  light 
and  air  from  taxation.  The  drawing-room  has 
two  large  windows,  one  of  which  descends  quite 
to  the  floor,  and  is  provided  with  two  or  three 
stone  steps  outside,  so  that  the  inmates  may 
readily  step  forth  on  to  the  terrace.  This  win- 
dow, by  the  way,  exposed  her  to  another  tax 
than  the  Government  one.  Hunters  of  celebri- 
ties were  wont,  in  the  tourist  season,  not  merely 
to  walk  round  her  garden  and  terrace  without 
leave,  but  even  to  mount  these  steps  and  flatten 
the  tips  of  their  noses  against  her  window. 
Objectionable  as  the  liability  to  this  friendly 
attention  would  be  felt  by  most  of  us,  it  was 
doubly  so  to  Miss  Martineau  because  of  her 
deafness,  which  precluded  her  from  receiving 
warning  of  her  admirers'  approaches  from  the 
crunching  of  their  footsteps  on  the  gravel  —  so 
that  the  first  intimation  that  she  would  receive 
of  their  presence  would  be  to  turn  her  head  by 


THE  HOME  LIFE.  l8l 

chance  and  find  the  flattened  nose  and  the  peer- 
ing eyes  against  the  window-pane.  There  is  a 
special  record  of  one  occasiqn,  when  her  bell 
rang  in  an  agitated  fashion,  and  the  maid,  on 
going,  found  her  mistress  much  disturbed. 
"  There  is  a  big  woman,  with  a  big  pattern  on 
her  dress,  beckoning  to  me  to  come  to  the  win- 
dow—  go,  and  tell  her  to  go  away."  But  simi- 
lar incidents  were  manifold,  and  her  servants 
had  to  be  trained  to  guard  their  mistress  as  if 
she  were  the  golden  apples  of  the  Hesperides. 
Indeed,  for  several  years  (till  she  became  too  ill 
to  travel)  she  used  to  leave  her  lake-side  home 
altogether  during  the  tourist  season. 

In  her  latest  years  she  commonly  wrote  in  the 
drawing-room,  as  the  sunniest  and  most  cheer- 
ful apartment,  and  where,  too,  she  could  sit  by 
the  fire,  and  yet  get  plenty  of  daylight.  Her 
proper  study,  however  was  the  room  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  hall.  This  is  a  long  room 
with  a  bay  window  at  the  other  end  of  the  fire- 
place, and  the  door  in  the  centre.  Book-cases 
lined  the  whole  of  these  walls  ;  but  her  library 
was  an  extensive  one,  and  there  were  books  all 
over  the  house.  This  room  served  as  dining- 
room  and  study,  both  ;  the  writing  table  was 
near  the  window,  the  dining-table  further 
towards  the  fire. 

The  only  other  room  on  the  ground  floor  is 


1 82  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

the  kitchen,  which  runs  parallel  with  the  draw- 
ing-room. Her  principles  and  her  practice  went 
hand-in-hand  in  her  domestic  arrangements  as 
in  her  life  generally ;  and  her  kitchen  was  as 
airy,  light  and  comfortable  for  her  maids  as  her 
drawing-room  was  for  herself.  The  kitchen, 
too,  was  provided  with  a  book-case  for  a  servants' 
library.  A  scullery,  dairy,  etc.,  are  annexed  to 
the  kitchen,  and  the  entrance  to  the  cellars 
below  is  also  found  through  the  green  baize 
door  which  shuts  off  the  cooking  region  from 
the  front  of  the  house. 

Up-stairs,  that  which  was  her  own  room  4s 
large  and  cheerful,  and  provided  with  two  win- 
dows, a  big  hanging  cupboard,  and  a  good  sized 
dressing-room  —  the  latter  indeed,  fully  large 
enough  for  a  maid  to  sleep  in.  The  next  was 
the  spare-room  ;  and  there  lingers  no  small  in- 
terest about  the  guest-chamber,  where  Harriet 
Martineau  received  such  guests  as  Charlotte 
Bronte,  George  Eliot,  Emerson,  and  Douglas 
Jerrold.  A  small  servants'  room  is  next  to  this, 
and  a  larger  one  is  over  the  kitchen,  so  that  it 
comes  just  at  the  head  of  the  stairs.  Such  is 
the  size  and  arrangement  of  Harriet  Martineau's 
home. 

Climbing  plants  soon  covered  "The  Knoll" 
on  every  side.  The  ivy  kept  it  green  through 
all  the  year;  the  porch  was  embowered  in 


THE  HOME  LIFE.  183 

honeysuckle,  clematis,  passion-flower,  and  Vir- 
ginia creeper.  Wordsworth,  Macready,  and 
other  friends  of  note,  planted  trees  for  Harriet 
below  the  terrace.  The  making  of  all  these 
arrangements  was  a  source  of  satisfaction  and 
delight  to  her  such  as  can  only  be  imagined  by 
those  who  have  felt  what  it  is  to  come  abroad 
after  a  long  and  painful  confinement  from  illness, 
and  to  find  life  and  usefulness  freely  open  again 
under  agreeable  conditions  and  prospects. 

While  her  house  was  being  built,  she  lodged 
in  Ambleside  ;  and  in  that  time,  during  the 
autumn  and  winter  of  1845-6,  she  wrote  her 
Forest  and  Game  Law  Tales,  with  the  object  of 
showing  how  mischievous  the  game  laws  were 
in  their  operation  upon  society  at  large,  and 
more  particularly  upon  the  fortunes  of  individ- 
ual farmers,  and  upon  the  laborers  who  were 
led  into  poaching.  These  tales  occupy  three 
volumes  of  the  ordinary  novel  size.  They  had 
a  sale  which  would  have  been  very  good  for  a 
novel ;  two  thousand  copies  were  disposed  of, 
and  doubtless  did  some  service  for  the  cause  for 
which  she  had  worked.  So  far  as  her  own 
pecuniary  interests  were  concerned,  however, 
these  tales  made  her  first  failure.  It  was  the 
only  work  which  never  returned  her  any  remu- 
neration. The  publisher  had  reckoned  on  a  very 
large  circulation,  and  so  had  put  out  too  much 


1 84  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

capital  in  stock,  stereotypes,  and  the  like,  to 
leave  any  profit  on  the  sale  that  actually  took 
place ;  and  the  publication  unfortunately  coin- 
cided with  the  agitation  of  the  political  world 
about  the  repeal  of  the  corn  laws.  But  one 
pleasing  incident  arose  out  of  them  for  her  per- 
sonally. She  had  been  in  difficulties  as  to  how 
to  obtain  turf  to  lay  down  upon  the  land  under 
her  terrace.  One  fine  morning,  soon  after  her 
entrance  on  her  home,  her  maid  found  a 
great  heap  of  sods  under  the  window,  when  she 
opened  the  shutters  in  the  morning.  A  dirty 
note,  closed  with  a  wafer,  was  stuck  upon  the 
pile,  and  this  was  found  to  state  that  the  sods 
were  "  a  token  of  gratitude  for  the  Game  Law 
Tales,  from  a  Poacher."  Harriet  never  dis- 
covered from  whom  this  tribute  came. 

She  took  possession  of  her  home  on  April 
7th,  1846.  During  the  summer  she  wrote 
another  story  for  young  people  —  one  of  her 
most  interesting  tales,  and  instructive  in  its 
moral  bearing  —  The  Billow  and  the  Rock.  It 
must  here  be  noted,  in  passing,  that  this  is  the 
last  of  her  works  in  which  the  theism  that  she 
had,  up  to  this  time,  held  for  religious  truth, 
makes  itself  visible.  A  new  experience  was 
about  to  lead  her  to  think  afresh  upon  the  theo- 
logical subjects,  and  to  revise  her  opinions 
about  the  genesis  of  faiths,  and  their  influence 
upon  morals. 


THE  HOME  LIFE.  185 

In  the  autumn  of  1846,  she  accepted  an 
invitation  from  her  friends,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  R.  V. 
Yates,  of  Liverpool,  to  join  them  in  a  journey 
to  the  East,  they  bearing  the  expense.  The 
party  left  England  in  October,  and  were  met 
at  Malta  by  Mr.  J.  C.  Ewart,  afterwards  M.  P. 
for  Liverpool.  Together,  these  four  travellers 
sailed  up  the  Nile  to  the  second  cataract,  studied 
Thebes  and  Philae,  went  up  and  into  the  Great 
Pyramid,  visited  bazaars,  mosques  and  (the 
ladies)  harems,  in  Cairo.  Then  they  travelled 
in  the  track  of  Moses  in  the  desert,  passing 
Sinai  and  reaching  Petra.  Next,  they  com- 
pletely traversed  Palestine ;  and  finally,  passed 
through  Syria  to  Beyrout,  where  they  took  ship 
again  for  home.  This  journey  occupied  eight 
months. 

In  October,  1847,  Harriet  reached  "The 
Knoll  "  again,  and  settled  herself  in  her  per- 
manent course  of  home  life.  As  the  same 
habits  were  continued,  with  only  the  interrup- 
tions of  occasional  visits  to  other  parts  of  the 
country,  day  by  day,  for  many  years,  I  may  as 
well  mention  what  was  the  course  of  that  daily 
home  life. 

She  rose  very  early :  not  infrequently,  in  the 
winter,  before  daylight ;  and  immediately  set 
out  for  a  good,  long  walk.  Sometimes,  I  am 
told,  she  would  appear  at  a  farm-house,  four 


1 86  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

miles  off,  before  the  cows  were  milked.  The 
old  post-mistress  recollects  how,  when  she  was 
making  up  her  early  letter-bags,  in  the  gray  of 
the  morning  mists,  Miss  Martineau  would  come 
down  with  her  large  bundle  of  correspondence, 
and  never  failed  to  have  a  pleasant  nod  and 
smile,  or  a  few  kindly  inquiries,  for  her  humble 
friend.  "I  always  go  out  before  it  is  quite 
light,"  writes  Miss  Martineau  to  Mr.  Atkinson, 
in  November,  1 847  ;  "  and  in  the  fine  mornings  I 
go  up  the  hill  behind  the  church  —  the  Kirk- 
stone  road  —  where  I  reach  a  great  height,  and 
see  from  half  way  along  Windermere  to  Rydal. 
When  the  little  shred  of  moon  that  is  left  and 
the  morning  star  hang  over  Wansfell,  among  the 
amber  clouds  of  the  approaching  sunrise,  it  is 
delicious.  On  the  positively  rainy  mornings,  my 
walk  is  to  Pelter  Bridge  and  back.  Sometimes 
it  is  round  the  south  end  of  the  valley.  These 
early  walks  (I  sit  down  to  my  breakfast  at  half- 
past  seven)  are  good,  among  other  things,  in 
preparing  me  in  mind  for  my  work." 

Returning  home,  she  breakfasted  at  half-past 
seven  ;  filled  her  lamp  ready  for  the  evening, 
and  arranged  all  household  matters  ;  and  by 
half-past  eight  was  at  her  desk,  where  she 
worked  undisturbed  till  two,  the  early  dinner- 
time. These  business  hours  were  sacred, 
whether  there  were  visitors  in  the  house  or 


THE  HOME  LIFE. 

not.  After  dinner,  however,  she  devoted  her- 
self to  guests,  if  there  were  any ;  if  not,  she 
took  another  walk,  or  in  bad  weather,  did  wool- 
work—  "many  a  square  yard  of  which,"  she 
says,  she  "  all  invisibly  embossed  with  thoughts 
and  feelings  worked  in."  Tea  and  the  news- 
paper came  together,  after  which  she  either 
read,  wrote  letters,  or  conversed  for  the  rest  of 
the  evening,  ending  her  day  always,  whatever 
the  weather,  by  a  few  moments  -of  silent  medi- 
tation in  the  porch  or  on  the  terrace  without. 

She  was  not  one  of  those  mistresses  who  can- 
not talk  to  their  servants,  any  more  than  she 
was  one  to  indulge  them  in  idle  and  familiar 
gossip.  If  there  were  any  special  news  of  the 
day,  she  would  invite  the  maids  into  her  sitting- 
room  for  half  an  hour  in  the  evening,  to  tell 
them  about  it.  During  the  Crimean  War,  and 
again  during  the  American  struggle,  in  partic- 
ular, the  servants  had  the  frequent  privilege  of 
tracing  with  her  on  the  map  the  position  of  the 
battles,  and  learning  with  her  aid  to  understand 
the  great  questions  that  were  at  stake. 

The  servants  thus  trained  and  considered  * 

*  Henry  Crabbe  Robinson  writes  to  Miss  Fenwick  on  Jan- 
uary 15,  1849  :  — 

"  Miss  Martineau  makes  herself  an  object  of  envy  by  the 
success  of  her  domestic  arrangements.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Wordsworth 
declares  she  is  a  model  in  her  household  economy,  making  her 
servants  happy,  and  setting  an  example  of  activity  to  her  neigh- 
bors." 


1 88  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

were  not,  certainly,  common  domestics.  She 
kept  two  girls  in  the  house,  besides  the  laboring 
man  and  his  wife  at  the  cottage  ;  and,  as  the  place 
was  small,  and  her  way  of  living  simple,  the  work 
did  not  require  that  she  should  choose  rough 
women  for  servants  merely  because  of  their 
strength.  On  the  contrary,  she  made  special 
efforts  to  secure  young  girls  of  a  somewhat 
superior  order,  whom  she  might  train  and  attach 
to  herself.  She  got  servants  whom  she  had  to 
dismiss  now  and  again,  of  course ;  but  the  time 
that  most  of  her  maids  stopped  with  her  and 
the  warm  feelings  that  they  showed  towards 
her,  are  a  high  testimony  to  the  domestic  charac- 
ter of  their  "  strong  minded"  mistress.  At  the 
time  of  which  we  are  now  spealdng,  her  maids 
were  "Jane,"  who  had  been  cured  from  chronic 
illness  by  Miss  Martineau's  mesmerizing,  and 
who  was  in  her  service  for  seven  years,  when 
the  girl  emigrated ;  and  "  Martha,"  who  had 
been  trained  for  teaching,  and  had  to  resign  it 
from  ill-health,  but  who  later  on  married  the 
master  of  Miss  Carpenter's  Bristol  Ragged 
Schools,  and  returned  to  teaching,  after  serving 
Miss  Martineau  for  some  eight  years. 

Of  the  servants  who  came  after  this,  "  Caro- 
line "  was  there  twenty  years,  till  she  was 
removed  by  death  ;  and  "  Mary  Anne  "  served 
Miss  Martineau  eleven  years,  till  the  mistress's 


THE  HOME  LIFE.  189 

death  closed  the  long  term  of  attendance  and 
almost  filial  love. 

Indications  of  how  different  the  relationship 
was  in  this  home  from  what  it  only  too  often 
is,  are  found  in  many  of  Miss  Martineau's  let- 
ters. When  "Martha"  married,  she  had  the 
rare  honor  of  having  Harriet  Martineau  and 
Mary  Carpenter  for  her  bridesmaids.  The 
mistress  gave  the  wedding  breakfast,  and  par- 
took of  it,  too,  in  company  with  the  bride  and 
bridegroom  and  their  friends;  and  when  she 
had  seen  them  all  off,  she  sat  down  to  write  to 
her  family  about  her  loss  "  with  a  bursting 
heart."  References  to  her  feelings  for  her 
"  dear  friend,  Caroline,"  will  be  seen  presently 
in  her  letters  to  Mr.  Atkinson ;  and  her  care 
and  affection  for  this  valued  servant  are  ex- 
pressed yet  more  frequently  in  letters  which  I 
may  not  quote,  to  more  domestic  friends.  As 
to  "  Mary  Anne,"  she  has  travelled  a  long  way 
while  in  delicate  health,  to  see  me,  to  tell  me 
all  she  could  of  her  mistress,  and  to  express 
how  glad  she  was  "to  know  of  anything  being 
done  to  make  Miss  Martineau's  goodness  better 
understood."  "Mary  Anne"  is  now  a  married 
woman.  She  was  engaged  for  three  or  four 
years  before  Miss  Martineau's  death,  but  would 
not  leave  her  mistress  in  her  old  age  and  her 
ill-health.  That  mistress,  on  her  part,  when 


190  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

told  of  the  engagement,  not  only  admitted  the 
lover  to  an  interview  with  herself,  but  even 
generously  urged  that  the  wedding  should  not 
be  delayed  for  her  sake,  although  at  this  time 
she  had  an  almost  morbid  shrinking  from  stran- 
gers, and  the  loss  of  the  personal  attendant 
who  knew  her  ways,  would  have  been  one  of 
the  greatest  calamities  of  the  commoner  order 
that  could  have  befallen  her.  But  "Mary 
Anne"  did  not  leave  her;  and  when,  at  last,  it 
became  quite  certain  that  death  was  at  hand, 
the  generous  lady  said  to  a  relative  that  it 
made  her  "  so  glad  to  think  that,  when  it  was 
over,  there  could  be  nothing  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  Mary  Anne's  marriage."  I  have  thus 
anticipated  in  order  to  show  that  the  domestic 
peace  which  existed  under  her  household  rule 
was  no  special  thing  dependent  upon  the  char- 
acter of  a  single  servant,  but  was  maintained 
through  all  the  years  of  her  home  life,  and 
therefore  unquestionably  was  the  result  of  the 
mistress's  qualities  of  heart  and  mind. 

What  may  be  called  her  external  home-life  — 
that  is  to  say,  what  she  was  to  her  poorer 
neighbors  —  during  that  ten  years  of  activity, 
may  also  be  best  noticed  before  the  mental 
progress  and  literary  work  of  the  period  come 
under  further  review. 

Every  winter,  for  several  years,  she  gave  a 


THE  HOME  LIFE.  191 

course  of  lectures  to  the  working-people  and 
tradesfolk  of  the  place,  in  the  Methodist 
school-room  at  the  back  of  her  house.  Many 
of  the  gentry  desired  to  attend,  but  she  would 
have  none  of  them,  on  the  double  ground  that 
there  was  no  room  for  them,  and  that  the  lec- 
tures were  designed  for  people  who  had  little 
access  to  books  or  other  educational  resources. 
The  subjects  that  she  treated  were  as  various 
as  those  of  her  books,  but  all  chosen  with  what 
I  have  previously  observed  seems  to  me  to 
have  been  the  object  of  all  her  works — to 
influence  conduct  through  knowledge  and  rea- 
soning. There  was  a  course  on  sanitary  mat- 
ters, others  on  her  travels  (and  we  know  from 
her  books  on  the  same  topics  from  what  point 
of  view  these  were  treated),  some  on  the  his- 
tory of  England,  another  on  the  history  and 
constitution  of  the  United  States ;  and,  finally, 
the  last  course  for  which  she  had  health  and 
strength  was  given  in  November  and  Decem- 
ber, 1854,  and  was  on  the  Crimean  War  and 
the  character  of  the  government  of  Russia. 

I  have  seen  some  of  the  older  inhabitants  of 
Ambleside  who  attended  these  lectures,  and 
who  now  speak  of  them  in  the  warmest  terms 
of  admiration.  "  They  were  so  clear ;  and  she 
never  stopped  for  a  word  ;  and  so  interesting ! 
—  one  could  have  listened  to  them  over  and 


192  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

over  again."  But  there  is  no  one  who  could  tell, 
with  the  aid  of  a  cultivated  taste,  what  she  was 
as  a  public  speaker.  So  eloquent  is  some  of 
her  writing  that  one  holds  one's  breath  as  one 
reads  it ;  and  the  evident  rapidity  of  the  pen- 
manship of  her  MS.*  shows  that  such  passages 
were  produced  with  all  the  improvisatory  im- 
pulse and  flow  of  the  orator.  If,  besides  this, 
her  delivery  was  fervent  and  impressive,  one 
cannot  but  think  how  great  a  statesman  and 
parliamentary  leader  she  might  have  been,  with 
these  essential  qualifications  for  modern  public 
life  added  to  all  that  knowledge,  judgment, 
strength  of  principle,  and  political  capacity 
which  made  men  willing  (as  we  shall  see  soon) 
to  accept  her  as  their  political  teacher  in  the 
daily  and  quarterly  press.  That  she  had  the 
orator's  stirring  gifts,  the  personal  magnetism 
which  compels  the  minds  of  a  mass  to  move 
with  the  words  of  a  speaker,  and  the  reciprocal 
power  of  receiving  stimulus  from  an  audience, 
when 

The  hearts  of  many  fires  the  lips  of  one, 

there  is  one  shadowy  incident  left  tox  show, 
besides  the  testimony  of  her  local  hearers  who 

*In  speaking  of  her  eloquent  writings  I  refer  specially  to 
the  History  of  the  Peace  ;  and  I  have  seen  the  manuscript  of 
this,  bearing  evidence  that  the  hand  could  not  keep  pace  with 
the  flow  of  words  and  thoughts. 


THE  HOME  LIFE.  1 93 

survive.  It  is  this:  in  1849  Charlotte  Bronte, 
then  in  the  first  flush  of  her  fame,  sought 
Harriet  Martineau's  acquaintance,  saying  that 
she  desired  "to  see  one  whose  works  have  so 
often  made  her  the  subject  of  my  thoughts." 
•In  the  following  year  Charlotte  visited  Harriet 
at  "The  Knoll,"  and  heard  one  of  the  English 
History  lectures.  Her  bright  eyes  were  fixed 
on  the  lecturer  all  through  ;  and  as  Harriet 
stood  on  her  low  platform,  while  the  audience 
dispersed,  she  heard  Charlotte  say,  in  the  very 
voice  of  the  lecturer,  what  Edward  said  in  the 
wind-mill  at  Cressy  :  "  Is  my  son  dead  ?"  They 
walked  silently  to  the  house  together  —  about 
three  hundred  paces  —  and  when  Harriet  turned 
up  her  lamp  in  the  drawing-room,  the  first  thing 
she  saw  was  Charlotte  looking  at  her  with  wide, 
shining  eyes,  and  repeating,  in  the  same  tone, 
"  Is  my  son  dead  ?  "  To  those  who  know  the 
dramatic  quality  of  Charlotte  Bronte's  imagina- 
tion, there  is  a  beam  of  light  reflected  from  this 
trifling  anecdote  upon  the  force  and  the  manner 
of  the  speaker  who  had  so  impressed  her. 

The  opinion  which  this  keenly  observant  and 
candid  woman  formed  of  Harriet  Martineau  is 
of  peculiar  interest,  and,  as  it  specially  refers 
to  the  period  and  the  relations  of  which  we  arc 
now  treating,  I  quote  it  from  Mrs.  Gaskell's  Life 
of  Charlotte  Bronte.  It  is  given  in  some  private 
7 


194  HARRIET  MARTINS  A  U. 

letters,  written  from  "The  Knoll"  (not,  as  Mrs. 
Chapman  absurdly  says,  to  Emily  Bronte,  who 
was  dead,  but)  to  Charlotte's  life-long  and  most 
confidential  friend,  Miss  Ellen  Nussey  :  — 

"  I  am  at  Miss  Martineau's  for  a  week.  Her 
house  is  very  pleasant  both  within  and  with- 
out ;  arranged  at  all  points  with  admirable  neat- 
ness and  comfort.  Her  visitors  enjoy  the  most 
perfect  liberty  ;  what  she  claims  for  herself  she 
allows  them.  .  .  .  She  is  a  great  and  good  woman. 
....  The  manner  in  which  she  combines  the 
highest  mental  culture  with  the  nicest  discharge 
of  feminine  duties  filled  me  with  admiration ; 
while  her  affectionate  kindness  earned  my  grati- 
tude. I  think  her  good  and  noble  qualities  far 
outweigh  her  defects.  It  is  my  habit  to  consider 
the  individual  apart  from  his  (or  her)  reputation, 
practice  independent  of  theory,  natural  disposi- 
tion isolated  from  acquired  opinion.  Harriet 
Martineau's  person,  practice,  and  character  in- 
spire me  with  the  truest  affection  and  respect. 

"  I  find  a  worth  and  greatness  in  herself,  and 
a  consistency  and  benevolence  and  persever- 
ance in  her  practice,  such  as  win  the  sincerest 
esteem  and  affection.  She  is  not  a  person  to  be 
judged  by  her  writings  alone,  but  rather  by  her 
own  deeds  and  life,  than  which  nothing  can  be 
more  exemplary  or  nobler.  She  seems  to  me  the 
benefactress  of  Ambleside,  yet  takes  no  sort  of 
credit  to  herself  for  her  active  and  indefatigable 
philanthropy.  The  government  of  her  house- 
hold is  admirably  administered  ;  all  she  does  is 
well  done,  from  the  writing  of  a  history  down  to 


THE  HOME  LIFE.  1 95 

the  quietest  feminine  occupation.  No  sort  of 
carelessness  or  neglect  is  allowed  under  her 
rule,  and  yet  she  is  not  over-strict,  or  too  rigidly 
exacting  ;  her  servants  and  her  poor  neighbors 
love  as  well  as  respect  her. 

"  I  must  not,  however,  fall  into  the  error  of 
talking  too  much  about  her,  merely  because  my 
mind  is  just  now  deeply  impressed  with  what  I 
have  seen  of  her  intellectual  power  and  moral 
worth." 

Some  of  her  lectures  were  given  with  the 
express  object  of  inducing  the  people  to  form 
a  building  society.  Rents  were  excessively 
high  for  the  working  classes  from  the  scarcity 
of  cottages ;  and  therefore  they  lived  and 
slept  crowded  together,  while  the  open  country 
extended  all  around  them.  The  moral  screw 
was  turned  upon  them,  too,  about  politics  and 
religion,  by  the  threat  of  the  landlord  that,  if 
they  offended  him,  he  would  turn  them  out  of 
the  only  cottages  they  could  get.  With  that 
true  philanthropy  which  her  studies  in  political 
economy  had  taught,  Miss  Martineau  went  to 
work  to  aid  the  people  to  improve  their  own 
condition.  She  obtained  a  loan  of  ^500  from 
her  old  friend,  Mrs.  Reid,  of  London  (to  whom 
the  foundation  of  Bedford  college  is  mainly  due), 
with  which  she  purchased  a  field  just  above  the 
village  at  Ellercross,and  parcelled  it  out,  drained 
it,  and  made  the  road.  Then,  by  her  lectures, 


1 96  HARRIET  MARTINEAU 

she  showed  the  people  how  they  could  "buy  a 
house  with  its  rent"  ;  and  she  undertook  all  the 
infinite  trouble  that  devolved  upon  her  when  the 
society  was  formed,  as  the  only  member  of  it 
with  legal  and  general  knowledge,  and,  there- 
fore, the  only  one  able  to  guide  its  affairs. 
Before  me  there  lies  a  package  of  the  notes 
that  she  sent  at  different  times  on  this  business 
to  Mr.  Bell,  the  Ambleside  chemist,  who  was 
the  nominal  chairman  —  though  she  was  the  real 
one  —  of  the  society.  "  Jealousy  and  ridicule 
went  to  work  against  the  scheme";  but  her 
philanthropic  energy  and  wisdom  were  fully 
successful.  The  cottages  are  healthily  planned 
and  well  built,  and  remain  there  as  a  monument 
to  the  efforts  which  she  made  for  the  good  of 
her  poor  neighbors. 

Besides  these  more  general  undertakings  for 
their  benefit,  there  yet  live  many  amongst  them 
who  are  grateful  to  her  for  personal  kindness 
and  assistance.  While  her  strength  lasted,  she 
was  ever  ready  to  try  to  relieve  others  from  ill- 
ness by  the  means  which  she  believed  to  have 
cured  herself  ;  and  seven  mesmerized  patients 
were  sometimes  asleep  at  one  time  in  her 
drawing-room.  She  was  a  powerful  mesmerist. 
Most  of  her  patients  were  at  least  relieved  — 
some  cured.  A  present  resident  of  Ambleside, 
who  owes  his  success  in  business  life  to  her 


THE   HOME  LIFE. 

kindness,  told  me  how  she  mesmerized  him  for 
nearly  an  hour  every  day  for  a  year  ;  and  to 
show  that  she  did  not  do  this  without  very 
decided  results  to  herself,  he  remembers  that  her 
fingers  used  to  swell  during  the  process,  so  as 
to  almost  hide  her  rings,  if  she  forgot  to  take 
them  off  before  beginning. 

Again,  her  library  was  placed  freely  at  the 
service  of  deserving  young  men  in  the  village, 
and  only  book-lovers  will  be  able  to  appreciate 
the  generosity  of  this  neighborly  kindness. 
Old  Miss  Nicholson  tells  me  of  Miss  Martineau's 
kindness  to  her  invalid  sister  ;  sharing  with  her 
the  luxuries  which  were  not  to  be  bought  in 
Ambleside,  but  which  the  famous  writer  fre- 
quently received  from  some  of  her  many  friends. 
Nor  was  the  mere  personal  human  sympathy 
wanting  in  her  ;  those  who  needed  no  gifts  or 
material  aid  from  her  knew  her  as  a  kind 
friend,  ready  to  think  for  them  and  advise  with 
them  in  their  troubles  or  perplexities. 

In  mentioning  her  activities  other  than  liter- 
ary, during  those  ten  busy  and  healthy  years  of 
home  life,  I  must  not  omit  her  "farming" 
her  farm  of  two  acres.  She  had  no  intention, 
at  first,  of  embarking  in  such  an  enterprise. 
She  let  on  hire  that  portion  of  her  land  which 
she  did  not  wish  to  have  in  her  garden,  and  her 
maids  and  herself,  with  the  occasional  help  of 


198  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

a  man,  kept  the  garden  in  order.  But  this  plan 
did  not  answer  well.  The  tenant  allowed  the 
grass  to  get  untidy,  and  his  sheep  broke  into 
the  garden  to  eat  the  cabbages.  Neither  the 
vegetable  nor  the  flower  garden  could  be  kept 
so  nicely  as  might  be  wished.  Milk,  butter, 
eggs,  and  hams,  all  had  to  be  bought  at  high 
prices ;  and  so  small  was  the  supply  at  times 
that  these  articles  of  country  produce  were 
actually  unattainable  by  purchase. 

The  energetic  lady  of  the  small  domain  was 
profoundly  dissatisfied  with  this  state  of  affairs. 
So  to  work  she  went  to  study  the  science  of 
agriculture  and  practical  farming  ;  and  soon  a 
Norfolk  laborer  was  established  on  her  land, 
and  this  small  farm  was  under  her  own  manage- 
ment. She  set  up  a  cross-pole  fence  around  her 
estate,  the  first  one  ever  seen  in  the  Lake 
District ;  and,  like  a  true  woman,  she  planted 
roses  all  along  the  fence,  to  wreathe  and  decorate, 
it  in  summer.  Then  she  initiated  her  fellow- 
farmers  into  the  mysteries  of  high  farming,  and 
stall  feeding.  "  A  cow  to  three  acres "  was 
the  Lake  rule ;  but  she  hired  another  half- 
acre  of  land,  to  add  to  her  own,  and  showed 
that  upon  this  total  of  two  acres  she  could 
almost  keep  two  cows.  Fowls  and  pigs  were,  of 
course,  kept  also;  and  all  the  household  com- 
forts which  cows,  hens,  and  pigs  supply  were 


THE  HOME  LIFE.  199 

obtained  from  her  land  at,  practically,  no  cost 
at  all.  The  subsistence  of  the  laborer  and  his 
wife  was  created  out  of  the  soil ;  and  the  house 
had  a  constant  supply  of  vegetables,  milk,  eggs, 
and  hams,  at  a  less  expense  than  buying  had 
previously  been,  and  with  a  much  nicer  and 
always  certain  supply. 

The  experiment  became  famous  in  a  small 
way.  "  People  camt  to  see  how  we  arranged 
our  ground,  so  as  to  get  such  crops  out  of  it,"  * 
and  one  of  the  Poor-Law  Commissioners,  having 
asked  her  for  a  private  account  of  how  she  had 
managed  her  little  farm,  printed  her  letter  in 
the  Times,  without  asking  her  consent.  This 
brought  such  a  flood  of  correspondence  on  her 
that  she  was  compelled  to  write  on  the  subject 
for  publication,  and  so  the  farm  superintendence 
resulted  in  a  piece  of  literary  work  for  the  mis- 
tress. 

Now  we  will  see  what  her  pen  was  doing 
while  all  these  activities  were  helping  to  fill  her 
days. 

*  Health,  Husbandry  and  Handicraft,  p.  269,  "  Our  Farm  of 
Two  Acres." 


CHAPTER  IX. 

IN    THE    MATURITY    OF    HER    POWERS. 

THE  book,  published  early  in  1848,  in  which 
Harriet  described  her  Egyptian,  Desert  and 
Palestine  travels,  was  entitled  Eastern  Life, 
Past  and  Present.  If  I  were  required  to  give 
from  some  one  only  of  her  works  a  series 
of  extracts  which  should  illustrate  the  special 
powers  of  her  mind  and  the  finest  features  of  her 
style,  it  would  be  this  book  that  I  should  choose. 
I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  most  eloquent  and 
vivid  passage  that  I  might  find  in  all  her  writ- 
ings is  here  ;  nor  that  her  deepest  and  noblest 
qualities  as  a  thinker  are  more  forcibly  displayed 
here  than  elsewhere.  But  I  mean  that  in 
Eastern  Life,  Past  and  Present,  all  her  best 
moral  and  intellectual  faculties  were  exerted, 
and  their  action  becomes  visible,  at  one  page  or 
another,  in  reading  the  book  from  the  first  to 
the  last  chapters.  The  keen  observation,  the 
active  thought,  the  vigorous  memory,  the  power 
of  deep  and  sustained  study,  the  mastery  of 
language,  giving  the  ability  to  depict  in  words 


MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS.        2OI 

and  to  arouse  the  reader's  imagination  to  men- 
tal vision  —  all  these  requisites  for  the  writing 
of  a  good  book  of  travel  she  showed  that  she 
possessed.  But  there  is  even  more  than  all  this 
in  Eastern  Life.  There  is  the  feeling  for 
humanity  in  all  its  circumstances,  which  can 
sympathize  no  less  with  the  slave  of  the  harem 
at  this  moment  alive  in  degradation,  than  with 
the  highest  intelligences  that  ceased  from  exist- 
ence unnumbered  thousands  of  years  ago.  The 
most  interesting  and  characteristic  feature  dis- 
tinguishing this  work  is,  however,  the  openness 
and  freedom  of  its  thought  combined  with  the 
profound  reverence  that  it  shows  for  all  that  is 
venerable. 

It  was  Eastern  Life  which  first  declared  to 
the  world  that  Harriet  Martineau  had  ceased 
to  have  a  theology.  She  had  learned  in  travel- 
ling through  Egypt,  how  much  of  what  Moses 
taught  was  derived  from  the  ancient  mythology 
of  Egypt.  Passing  afterwards  through  the 
lands  where  the  Hebrew,  the  Christian,  and 
the  Mohammedan  faiths  in  turn  arose,  observ- 
ing, thinking,  and  studying,  the  conclusion  at 
which  she  arrived  at  last  was,  in  brief,  this  : 
That  men  have  ever  constructed  the  image  of  a 
Ruler  of  the  Universe  out  of  their  own  minds  ; 
that  all  successive  ideas  about  the  Supreme 
Power  have  been  originated  from  within,  and 


202  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

modified  by  the  surrounding  circumstances ; 
and  that  all  theologies,  therefore,  are  baseless 
productions  of  the  human  imagination,  and 
have  no  essential  connection  with  those  great 
religious  ideas  and  emotions  by  which  men  are 
constrained  to  live  nobly,  to  do  justly,  and  to 
love  what  they  see  to  be  the  true  and  the  right. 
Her  conviction  that  the  highest  moral  con- 
duct, and  the  most  unselfish  goodness,  and  the 
noblest  aspirations,  are  in  no  degree  connected 
with  any  kind  of  creed,  was  aided  and  sup- 
ported, no  doubt,  by  her  warm  personal  affec- 
tion for  Mr.  Atkinson,  and  some  other  of  her 
friends  of  his  way  of  thinking,  in  whom  she 
found  aspirations  as  lofty  and  feelings  as  admi- 
rable as  ever  she  had  enjoyed  communion  with, 
together  with  a  complete  rejection,  on  scien- 
tific grounds,  of  air  theology.  Her  belief  now 
was  that  — 

The  best  state  of  mind  was  to  be  found,  how- 
ever it  might  be  accounted  for,  in  those  who 
were  called  philosophical  atheists.  ...  I  knew 
several  of  that  class  —  some  avowed,  and  some 
not ;  and  I  had  for  several  years  felt  that  they 
were  among  my  most  honored  acquaintances 
and  friends  ;  and  now  I  knew  them  more  deeply 
and  thoroughly,  I  must  say  that,  for  conscien- 
tousness,  sincerity,  integrity,  seriousness,  effec- 
tive intellect,  and  the  true  religious  spirit^  I 
knew  nothing  like  them. 


MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS.        203 

Her  own  "  true  religious "  earnestness  was 
unabated.  Eastern  Life  contains  abundance  of 
evidence  that  the  spirit  in  which  she  now  wrote 
against  all  theological  systems  was  exactly  at 
one  with  that  in  which  she  had  twenty  years 
before  written  Addresses,  Prayers  and  Hymns. 
Her  intellectual  range  had  become  far  wider; 
her  knowledge  of  human  nature  and  of  the 
history  and  conditions  of  mankind  had  vastly 
increased  ;  but  her  religious  earnestness  —  that 
is  to  say,  her  devotion  to  truth,  and  her  emo- 
tional reverence  for  her  highest  conceptions  of 
goodness  and  duty  —  was  as  fervent  as  ever. 

Notwithstanding  the  boldness  and  hetero- 
doxy of  Eastern  Life,  it  did  not  cause  much 
outcry ;  and  her  two  next  books  were  amongst 
the  most  successful  of  all  her  works.  The  first 
of  these  was  Household  Education  ;  the  second, 
A  History  of  the  Thirty  Years'  Peace. 

The  former  was  partly  written  for  periodical 
publication  during  1847  in  the  People  s  Journal, 
for  which  magazine  she  wrote  also  a  few  desul- 
tory articles. 

The  History  of  the  Peace  was  a  voluminous 
work  of  the  first  order  of  importance.  Its 
execution  is  in  most  respects  entirely  admira- 
ble. Her  task  of  writing  the  history  of  the 
time  in  which  she  had  herself  lived  was  one  of 
extreme  delicacy.  Honest  contemporary  judg 


204  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

ments  about  still-living  or  lately-dead  persons, 
and  about  actions  which  have  been  observed 
with  all  the  freshness  of  feeling  of  the  passing 
moment,  must  often  seem  unduly  stern  to  those 
who  look  back  through  the.  softening  veil  of 
the  past,  and  to  whom  the  actors  have  always 
been  purely  historic  personages.  Moreover,  I 
have  before  mentioned  her  tendency,  which 
seems  to  me  to  have  arisen  from  her  deafness, 
to  give  insufficient  shading  off  in  depicting 
character.  But  wonderfully  little  allowance  is, 
after  all,  required  on  such  grounds  from  the 
reader  at  the  present  day  of  Harriet  Marti- 
neau's  history  of  the  years  between  1815  and 
1845.  The  view  taken  by  her  of  O'Connell, 
Brougham,  and  some  others  is  perhaps  too 
stern  ;  the  picture  has  too  many  dark  shades, 
and  not  a  due  proportion  of  light  tints  ;  but  it 
can  scarcely  be  questioned  that  the  outline  is 
accurate,  and  the  whole  drawing  substantially 
correct.  The  earnest  endeavor  after  imparti- 
ality, and  the  success  with  which  the  j  udicial 
attitude  of  the  historian  is  on  the  whole  main- 
tained, are  very  remarkable. 

This  appears  so  to  one  who  looks  upon  the 
book  with  the  eyes  of  the  present  generation  ; 
but  the  recognition  of  the  fact  at  the  moment 
when  she  wrote  is  perhaps  more  conclusive,  and 
the  following  quotation  may  serve  to  show  the 


MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS.        205 

opinion   of   those    who    (with    her)    had    lived 
through  the  time  of  which  she  treats. 

Miss  Martineau  has  been  able  to  discuss 
events  which  may  almost  be  called  contemporary 
as  calmly  as  if  she  were  examining  a  remote 
period  of  antiquity.  She  has  written  the  his- 
tory of  a  rather  undignified  reign  with  a  dignity 
that  raises  even  the  strifes  of  forgotten  and 
exploded  parties  into  philosophic  importance. 
She  exhibits  warm  sympathies  for  all  that  is 
noble,  honorable,  or  exhalted  —  and  a  thorough 
disdain  of  every  paltry  contrivance  devised  to 
serve  a  temporary  purpose,  or  gain  an  unworthy 
end.  The  principles  which  she  enunciates  are 
based  on  eternal  truths,  and  evolved  with  a 
logical  precision  that  admits  rhetorical  ornament 
without  becoming  obscure  or  confused.  There 
are  few  living  authors  who  may  be  so  implicitly 
trusted  with  the  task  of  writing  contemporary 
history  as  Miss  Martineau.  She  has  spared  no 
pains  in  investigating  the  truth,  and  allowed  no 
fears  to  prevent  her  from  stating  it.* 

Though  all  her  other  books  should  die,  and 
be  buried  utterly  under  the  dust  of  time,  this 
one  will  never  be  entirely  lost.  It  is  as  accurate 
and  as  careful  in  its  facts  as  the  driest  compen- 
dium, while  yet  its  pages  glow  with  eloquence, 
and  are  instinct  with  political  wisdom.  She 
really  did  here  what  she  had  designed  to  do  in 
Society  in  America  ;  but  here  she  did  it  in  the 

*Athenceum,  March,  3ist,  1849. 


206  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

right  method,  there  in  a  wrong  one.  The  great 
growth  of  her  mind  in  twelve  years  of  maturity 
could  not  be  better  gauged  than  by  a  compari- 
son of  these  two  works.  Her  political  principles 
did  not  change  in  the  time  ;  she  was  a  true 
believer  in  popular  government  all  her  life  — 
her  love  of  justice  caused  her  to  be  a  hater  of 
class  rule,  and  of  every  kind  of  privilege ;  her 
sympathies  were  boundless,  and  made  her  in 
earnest  for  the  freedom  and  progress  of  the 
democracy  ;  her  conscience  was  active  so  that 
she  loved  truth  for  its  own  sake  ;  and  her  sense 
of  duty  never  failed  to  keep  alive  in  her  large 
mind  a  feeling  of  personal  concern  in  the  pro- 
gress of  public  affairs.  All  this  was  true  of  her 
when  she  wrote  her  American  book ;  it  was 
equally  true  when  she  treated  the  history  of  her 
own  land  and  her  own  times.  But  in  the  latter 
case,  she  writes  on  political  philosophy  like  a 
statesman  —  in  the  former  there  is  much  of  the 
doctrinaire.  In  the  latter  work,  principles 
underlie  the  whole  fabric  ;  but  the  actions  of 
politicians  are  made  the  means  of  judging  their 
own  professed  creeds,  the  value  of  those  creeds 
being  easily  appraised  by  the  results  seen  to 
follow  on  actions  in  conformity  with  them.  In 
the  earlier  work,  as  we  saw,  the  theories  were 
postulated  first,  and  the  actions  were  measured 
against  those  self-derived  standards  of  right  and 


MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS.        207 

wrong.  For  political  sagacity,  for  nobility  of 
public  spirit,  for  effective  thought,  for  knowl- 
edge of  facts,  for  clear  presentation  of  them, 
for  accuracy  in  judging  of  their  permanent 
importance,  for  candor,  and  impartiality,  for 
insight  into  character,  and  for  vivid  and  glowing 
eloquence,  The  History  of  the  Thirty  Years 
Peace  stands  forth  unmatched  amongst  books 
of  its  class.  This,  I  take  it,  will  be  the 
most  enduring  and  valuable  of  all  her  works, 
and  the  one  by  which  chiefly  posterity  will  learn 
what  were  her  powers  and  how  estimable  was 
her  character. 

In  the  two  works  last  mentioned,  Eastern 
Life  and  The  Thirty  Years'  Peace,  it  seems  to 
me  that  she  touched  the  high-water  mark  of 
her  permanent  achievements.  We  have  nearly 
reached  the  end  of  the  long  catalogue  of  her 
books,  though  by  no  means  the  end  of  her 
writings.  Very  much  more  work  she  did  in 
her  life,  as  will  presently  be  told,  but  it  was 
that  kind  of  work  which  is  (with  the  single 
exception  of  oratory)  the  most  powerful  at  the 
moment,  but  the  most  evanescent  —  journalism. 
She  was  soon  to  begin  to  apply  her  ripe  wis- 
dom and  her  life-long  study  of  the  theory 
of  government  to  the  concrete  problems  of 
practical  politics.  The  influence  of  an  active 
and  powerful  journalist  cannot  be  measured; 


208  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

the  work  itself  cannot  be  adequately  surveyed 
and  criticized ;  and  thus  what  is,  perhaps,  the 
most  useful,  capable  and  important  work  which 
Harriet  Martineau  did,  eludes  our  detailed 
survey.  We  can  best  judge  what  was  her 
power  as  a  leader-writer  and  review  and  maga- 
zine essayist  by  noting  how  progressively  her 
mind  improved,  and  to  what  a  high  moral  and 
intellectual  standpoint  she  had  attained  in  her 
latest  volumes,  just  before  she  exchanged  such 
sustained  labors  for  the  briefer  though  not  less 
arduous  efforts  of  leading  and  teaching  through 
the  periodical  press. 

77/i?  History  of  the  Peace  was  completed  in 
1850,  and  was  so  immediately  successful  that 
the  publisher  asked  Miss  Martineau  to  write 
an  introductory  volume  on  the  history  of  the 
first  fifteen  years  of  this  century.  While  at 
work  upon  this  "Introduction"  she  did  also 
some  short  articles  on  various  subjects  for 
Charles  Dickens'  periodical,  HouseJiold  Words, 
and  was  likewise  proceeding  with  the  prepara- 
tion of  another  volume  of  a  very  different 
kind.  This  last  was  published  in  January, 
1851  (before  the  introductory  volume  of  the//z.r- 
tory),  under  the  title  of  Letters  on  the  Laws  of 
Man's  Nature  and  Development,  by  Henry  George 
Atkinson,  F.  G.  S.,  and  Harriet  Martineau. 

The  contents  of  the  book  were  actual  letters 


MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS.        209 

which  had  passed  between  the  friends.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  Harriet  did  not  meet  Mr. 
Atkinson  during  the  progress  of  her  mesmeric 
treatment  and  recovery  from  illness  under  his 
written  advice.'  But  soon  after  she  got  better, 
they  were  visiting  together  at  the  house  of  a 
cousin  of  hers,  and  during  the  six  years  or  so 
which  had  since  then  passed,  they  had  often 
met,  and  their  correspondence  had  grown  to 
be  very  frequent.  Mr.  Atkinson  had  gradually 
become  the  friend  dearest  to  Harriet  Martineau 
in  all  the  world.  He  gained  her  affection  (I 
use  the  word  advisedly)  by  entirely  honorable 
roads  —  by  the  delight  which  she  took  in 
observing  his  scientific  knowledge,  his  original- 
ity of  thought  and  his  elevated  tone  of  mind. 
But  I  cannot  doubt  that  long  before  this  vol- 
ume of  Letters  was  published,  he  had  become 
dear  to  her  by  virtue  of  that  personal  attraction 
which  is  not  altogether  dependent  upon  merit, 
but  which  enhances  such  merits  as  may  be 
possessed  by  the  object  of  the  attachment,  and 
somewhat  confuses  the  relationship  on  the 
intellectual  side.  This  condition  of  things  is 
in  no  way  especially  feminine ;  John  Stuart 
Mill  bowed  down  to  Mrs.  Taylor,  and  Comte 
erected  his  admiration  of  Clotilde  into  a  culte. 
Mr.  Atkinson  was  many  years  younger  than 
his  friend,  and  very  likely  she  never  fully  real- 


210  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

ized  the  depth  of  her  own  feelings  towards  him. 
But  still  the  attraction  had  its  influence,  though 
unacknowledged  in  words,  and  unreciprocated 
in  kind. 

Miss  Martineau  was  really  taught  by  Mr. 
Atkinson  much  of  science  that  she  had  not  pre- 
viously studied ;  but  yet  it  was  an  error,  from 
every  point  of  view,  for  her  to  present  to  the 
world  a  book  in  which  she  avowed  herself  his 
pupil.  Her  letters  are  mainly  composed  of 
questions,  upon  which  she  seeks  enlightenment. 
The  answers  cannot,  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
give  forth  a  connected  system  of  thought  upon 
"Man's  Nature  and  Development."  No  one 
was  more  ready  than  she  herself  to  recognize 
that,  as  she  says,  "in  literature,  no  mind  can 
work  well  upon  the  lines  laid  down  by 
another"  ;  yet  this  was  what  she  required  Mr. 
Atkinson  to  do  in  replying  to  her  questions  and 
taking  up  her  points.  The  errors  that  one 
would  expect  are  found  in  the  results  of  this 
mistaken  form  ;  the  facts  and  the  inferences 
are  neither  sufficiently  separated,  nor  properly 
connected ;  and  the  real  value  which  the  book 
had  as  a  contribution  to  science  and  philoso- 
phy is  lost  sight  of  in  the  disorder.  In  fact,  no 
form  could  be  less  suitable  than  the  epistolary 
for  such  work  —  either  for  the  writers  to  arrange 
and  analyze  what  they  were  doing,  or  for  the 


MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS.        211 

reader  to  see  and  understand  what  they  have 
done.  Besides  this,  the  public  had  long  con- 
sented to  learn  from  Harriet  Martineau ;  but 
Mr.  Atkinson,  though  highly  respected  by  his 
own  circle,  was  not  known 'to  the  general  public, 
and  it  was  therefore  an  error  in  policy  for  Miss 
Martineau  to  show  herself  sitting  as  a  pupil  at 
his  feet,  and  to  call  on  those  who  believed  in 
her  to  believe  in  him  as  her  teacher  and  guide. 
Her  fine  tact  and  long  experience  must  have 
led  her  to  perceive  all  this  in  an  ordinary  case  ; 
and  only  the  personal  reason  of  a  desire  to  win 
for  her  friend  the  recognition  from  the  public 
which  she  herself  had  already  given  him  so  fully 
in  her  own  head  and  heart,  could  have  led  an 
experienced  and  able  woman  of  letters  to  so 
blunder  in  her  selection  of  the  literary  form  of 
the  book. 

As  to  the  substance  of  the  Letters,  but  little 
need  be  said,  because  the  bulk  of  the  volume  is 
not  her  writing,  but  Mr.  Atkinson's.  The 
ideas  which  she  had  then  accepted,  however, 
were  those  by  which  she  lived  the  rest  of  her 
life,  and  must  have  their  due  share  of  notice  for 
that  reason. 

The  fundamental  point  in  the  book  is  its 
insistance  on  the  Baconian,  or  experiential,  or, 
scientific,  method  of  inquiry  being  adopted  in 
studying  man  and  his  mental  constitution,  just 


212  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

as  much  as  in  studying  inanimate  nature.  A 
great  First  Cause  of  all  things  is  not  denied,  but 
declared  unknown  and  unknowable,  as  neces- 
sarily beyond  the  comprehension  of  the  senses 
of  man.  Supernatural  revelation  is,  of  course, 
entirely  rejected  ;  indeed,  the  very  word  super- 
natural is  held  to  involve  a  fallacy,  for  only  nat- 
ural things  can  be  known.  Mr.  Atkinson 
pointed  out  that  the  whole  of  the  facts  which 
are  around  us  can  be  observed,  analyzed,  and 
found  to  occur  in  an  invariable  sequence  of 
causes  and  effects,  which  form  natural  laws ; 
and  that  the  mind  of  man  is  no  exception  to 
this  general  truth,  that  all  events  spring  from 
causes,  and  are  themselves  in  turn  causes  of 
other  effects.  It  follows  from  these  conclusions 
that  the  "First  Cause"  (which,  as  Miss  Mar- 
tineau  said,  the  constitution  of  the  human  mind 
requires  it  to  suppose)  never  intervenes  in  the 
world  as  an  errant  influence,  disturbing  natural 
law ;  and  all  speculations  about  its  nature,  char- 
acter, and  purposes  are  put  aside  as  out  of  the 
field  of  inquiry. 

Passing  on  from  method  to  results,  Mr.  Atkin- 
son gave  the  first  hints  of  many  doctrines  now 
fully  accepted  :  as  that  of  unconscious  cerebra- 
tion, or  that  of  more  senses  than  five,  for  in- 
stance ;  and  many  others  (based  mainly  on 
phrenology  and  mesmerism)  not  held,  up  to  the 


MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS.       213 

present  time,  even  by  the  scientists  of  his  own 
school.  For  the  rest  the  book  has  much  that  is 
interesting  ;  it  has  much  that  is  true  ;  but  it 
has,  also,  much  that  might  well  have  been  put 
forward  as  speculation,  but  should  not  have  been 
stated  so  dogmatically  as  it  was  on  the  evidence 
available.* 

It  was  received  in  1851  with  a  howl  from  the 
orthodox  press  which  would  seem  strange  indeed 
in  these  days.  But  of  competent  criticism  it  had 
very  little.  Miss  Martineau's  name,  of  course, 
secured  attention  for  it ;  and  small  though  her 
share  in  the  book  was,  it  was  quite  enough  to 
make  the  fact  perfectly  clear  that  she  was  hence- 
forth to  be  looked  upon  as  a  "materialist"  and 
a  "philosophical  atheist,"  and  the  rest  of  the 
names  by  which  it  was  customary  to  stigmatize 
any  person  who  rejected  supernaturalism  and 
revelation. 

The  motives  with  which  this  book  was  written 
and  published  could  hardly  be  misunderstood. 
There  could  be  no  idea  of  making  money  out  of 

*  It  is  right  that  I  should  say  that  I  alone  am  responsible  for 
the  above  (necessarily  imperfect)  digest  of  the  contents  of  the 
book.  I  at  first  thought  of  asking  Mr.  Atkinson  to  do  me  the 
favor  of  reading  my  account  of  his  work  in  proof;  but  I  ulti- 
mately concluded  that  it  would  be  better  that  in  this  instance, 
as  in  the  case  of  all  Harriet  Martineau's  other  books,  I  myself 
should  be  wholly  responsible  to  the  public  for  my  own  sub- 
stantial accuracy  and  fairness. 


214  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

a  work  on  philosophy — even  if  either  of  the 
authors  had  been  in  the  habit  of  writing  merely 
to  make  money ;  while  as  to  fame  and  applause, 
everyone  is  more  or  less  acquainted  with  the 
history  of  the  reception  given  in  all  ages  to 
those  who  have  questioned  the  popular  beliefs 
of  their  time !  The  sole  motive  with  which 
Harriet  Martineau  wrote  and  issued  this  book 
was  the  same  that  impelled  her  to  do  all  her 
work — -the  desire  to  teach  that  which  she 
believed  to  be  true,  and  to  be  valuable  in  its 
influence  upon  conduct.  With  regard  to  the 
latter  point,  it  seemed  to  her  that  one  great 
cause  for  the  slow  advance  of  civilization  is  the 
degree  to  which  good  men  and  women  have 
occupied  themselves  with  supernatural  concerns, 
neglecting  for  these  the  actual  world,  its  condi- 
tions, and  its  wants,  and  giving  themselves  over 
to  the  guidance  of  a  spiritual  hierarchy  instead 
of  exercising  all  their  own  powers  in  freedom. 
She  struck  at'  this  error  in  publishing  the 
Letters.  At  the  same  time  she  felt  doubtful  if 
her  future  writings  would  ever  be  read  after  her 
bold  utterances,  and  even,  as  the  following  letter 
shows,  whether  she  might  not  find  herself  the 
occupant  of  a  felon's  dock  for  the  crime  of  which 
Socrates,  and  Jesus,  and  Galileo  were  each  in 
turn  accused  — blasphemy  : 


MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS.       215 

LETTER  TO  MR.  ATKINSON. 
[Extract.]  August  10,  1874. 

One  thing  more  is  worth  saying.  Do  you 
remember  how,  when  we  were  bringing  out  our 
"  Letters,"  I  directed  your  attention  to  our 
Blasphemy  Law,  and  the  trial  of  Moxon,  under 
that  law,  for  publishing  Shelley's  "  Queen  Mab  " 
among  his  Poems?  You  ridiculed  my  state- 
ment, and  said  Mr.  Procter  *  denied  there  being 
such  a  law,  or  Moxon  having  been  tried,  in  the 
face  of  the  fact  that  I  had  corresponded  with 
Moxon  on  the  occasion,  on  the  part  of  certain 
personal  friends.  The  fact  appeared  afterwards 
in  the  Annual  Register,  but  it  seemed  to  pro- 
duce no  effect.  Well,  now  you  can  know  the 
truth  by  looking  at  the  Life  of  Denman,  by  Sir 
Joseph  Arnould.  If  you  can  lay  your  hands  on 
the  book,  please  look  at  vol.  ii.  p.  129,  where 
there  is  an  account  of  the  trial,  Judge  Denman 
being  the  judge  who  tried  the  case.  The  narra- 
tive ends  thus:  —  "The  verdict  was  for  the 
Crown  "  (conviction  for  blasphemy),  "  but  Mr. 
Moxon  was  never  called  up  for  sentence."  It  is 
too  late  for  Mr.  Procter  to  learn  the  truth,  but 
it  is  surely  always  well  for  us,  while  still  engaged 
in  the  work  of  life,  to  be  accurately  informed  on 
such  matters  as  the  laws  we  live  under,  and  our 
consequent  responsibilities.  Is  it  not  so  ? 

It  was,  then,  with  the  full  anticipation,  not 
only  of  social  obloquy,  but  also  of  legal  penalty, 
that  the  brave  thinker  fulfilled  (to  quote  her  own 

*  "Barry  Cornwall." 


2l6  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

words  in  the  preface  to  the  Letters]  "that  great 
social  duty,  to  impart  what  we  believe,  and  what 
we  think  we  have  learned.  Among  the  few 
things  of  which  we  can  pronounce  ourselves 
certain  is  the  obligation  of  inquirers  after  truth 
to  communicate  what  they  obtain."  The  heroic 
soul  fulfilled  now,  as  before  and  afterwards, 
what  she  held  to  be  her  duty,  as  simply  and 
unwaveringly  as  ever  a  soldier  on  the  battle- 
field charged  the  cannon's  mouth. 

Five  times  in  her  life  did  Harriet  Martineau 
write  and  publish  that  which  she  believed  would 
ruin  her  prospects,  silence  her  voice  for  ever, 
and  close  her  career.  Far  from  her  was  that 
common  paltering  with  the  conscience  by  which 
so  many  men  confuse  their  minds  —  the  poor 
pretence  that  truth  must  not  be  spoken  for  fear 
that  the  speaker's  influence  for  future  worthy 
work  may  be  injured  by  his  boldness.  This  is 
how  the  devil  tempts,  saying,  "  Fall  down,  and 
worship  me,  and  I  will  give  thee  all  the  king- 
doms of  the  earth  and  the  glory  of  them." 
Harriet  Martineau  never  worshipped  evil  even 
by  silence,  when  silence  was  sin,  playing  fast 
and  loose  with  her  conscience  by  a  promise  to 
use  the  power  so  obtained  for  higher  objects 
hereafter.  The  truth  that  appeared  to  her  mind 
she  spoke  frankly ;  the  work  that  was  placed 
for  her  to  do  she  did  simply  ;  and  so  the  quag- 


MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS.        2 1/ 

mire  of  the  expedient  never  engulfed  her  repu- 
tation, her  self-respect  and  her  usefulness,  as  it 
has  done  that  of  so  many  who  have  been  lured 
into  it  from  the  straight  path  of  right  action 
and  truthful  speech  in  public  life,  by  will-o'-the- 
wisp  hopes  of  greater  power  and  glory  for 
themselves  in  the  future  —  which  they  hope 
they  may  use  for  good  when  they  shall  be 
smothered  in  cowardice  and  lies.  She  had 
much  to  suffer,  and  did  suffer.  Martyrs  are 
not  honored  because  they  are  insensate,  but 
because  they  defy  their  natural  human  weak- 
nesses in  maintaining  that  which  they  believe 
to  be  true.  Probably  the  keenest  grief  which 
she  experienced  on  the  occasion  now  before  us 
came  from  the  complete  separation  which  took 
place  between  her  and  the  dearest  friend  of  her 
youth,  her  brother  James.  Dr.  Martineau  was, 
at  that  time,  one  of  the  editors  of  the  Prospect- 
ive Review.  Philosophy  was  his  department, 
and  in  the  natural  order  the  Letters  came  to 
him  for  review.  He  reviewed  the  book  accord- 
ingly and  in  such  terms  that  all  intercourse 
between  him  and  his  sister  was  thenceforward 
at  an  end.  They  had  long  before  drifted  apart 
in  thought ;  but  this  final  separation  was  none 
the  less  felt  as  a  wrench.  Dr.  Martineau's 
attack  was  almost  exclusively  aimed  against  Mr. 
Atkinson.  But  with  Harriet's  loyalty  of  nature 


2l8  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

she  was  more  impelled  to  resent  what  was  said 
about  her  friend  and  colleague  than  if  it  had 
been  directed  against  herself.  The  brother  and 
sister  never  met  or  communicated  with  each 
other  again. 

The  introductory  volume  of  the  History  of 
the  Peace  was  published  soon  after  the  Atkin- 
son Letters.  The  next  work  which  she  under- 
took was  a  great  labor  —  the  rendering  into 
English  of  Comte's  Positive  Philosophy. 

What  she  accomplished  with  this  book  was 
not  a  mere  translation,  nor  could  it  be  precisely 
described  as  a  condensation  ;  it  was  both  these 
and  more.  Comte  had  propounded  his  ground- 
work of  philosophy  and  his  outline  of  all  the 
sciences  in  six  bulky  volumes,  full  of  repeti- 
tions, and  written  in  an  imperfect  French  style. 
Harriet  Martineau  rendered  the  whole  sub- 
stance of  these  six  volumes  into  two  of  clear 
English,  orderly,  consecutive,  and  scientific  in 
method  as  in  substance.  So  well  was  her  work 
accomplished  that  Comte  himself  adopted  it 
for  his  students'  use,  removing  from  his  list  of 
books  for  Positivists  his  own  edition  of  his 
course,  and  recommending  instead  the  English 
version  by  Miss  Martineau.  It  thus  by-and- 
bye  came  to  pass  that  Comte's  own  work  fell 
entirely  out  of  use,  and  his  complete  teachings 
became  inaccessible  to  the  French  people  in 


MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS.        2ig 

their  own  tongue ;  so  that  twenty  years  after- 
wards, when  one  of  his  disciples  wished  to  call 
public  attention  to  the  master's  work  as  teach- 
ing the  method  of  social  science  by  which  the 
French  nation  must  find  its  way  back  to  pros- 
perity after  the  great  war,  he  was  constrained 
to  ask  Harriet  Martineau's  permission  to  re- 
translate her  version. 

Comte  wrote  her  the  warmest  expressions  of 
his  gratitude  ;  but  this  he  owed  her  on  another 
ground  besides  the  one  of  the  value  of  her 
labors  in  popularizing  his  work  so  ably.  While 
she  was  laboring  at  her  task,  Mr.  Lombe,  then 
High  Sheriff  of  Norfolk,  sent  her  a  cheque  for 
£$oo,  which  he  begged  her  to  accept,  since  she 
was  doing  a  work  which  he  had  long  desired  to 
see  accomplished,  but  which  he  knew  could  not 
possibly  be  remunerative  to  her.  She  accepted 
the  money,  but  with  her  customary  generosity 
in  pecuniary  affairs,  she  employed  more  than 
half  of  it  in  paying  the  whole  expenses  of  pub- 
lication, and  arranged  that  the  proceeds  of  the 
sale,  whatever  they  might  be,  should  be  shared 
with  M.  Comte. 

There  was  a  considerable  demand  for  the 
work  on  its  first  appearance  ;  and  up  to  this 
present  date  a  fair  number  of  copies  is  annu- 
ally disposed  of.  It  came  out  in  November, 
1853,  having  partly  occupied  her  time  during 


220  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

the  preceding  two  years.  Only  partly,  how- 
ever ;  for,  besides  all  the  efforts  for  her  neigh- 
borhood previously  referred  to  (the  building 
society  was  in  progress  during  those  years,  and 
gave  her  much  thought,  as  her  business  notes 
are  in  evidence),  and  besides  her  farming,  she 
was  now  writing  largely  for  periodicals  and 
newspapers.  These  are  the  pulpits  from  which 
our  modern  preachers  are  most  widely  and 
effectively  heard,  and  the  right  tone  of  which 
is,  therefore,  of  the  first  consequence  to  society. 
For  every  hundred  persons  who  listen  to  the 
priest,  the  journalist  (including  in  this  term 
writers  for  all  periodicals)  speaks  to  a  thou- 
sand ;  and  while  the  words  of  the  one  are  often 
heard  merely  as  a  formality,  those  of  the  other, 
dealing  with  the  matters  at  the  moment  most 
near  and  interesting  to  his  audience,  may  effec- 
tively influence  the  thoughts  and  consciences 
and  actions  of  thousands  in  the  near  future. 
Shallow,  indeed,  would  be  the  mind  which 
undervalued  the  power  of  the  journalist,  or 
underrated  the  seriousness  of  his  vocation. 

Harriet  Martineau  saw  the  scope  which 
journalism  afforded  for  the  kind  of  work  which 
she  had  all  her  life  been  doing  —  the  influencing 
of  conduct  by  considering  practical  affairs  in 
the  light  of  principle.  Her  periodical  writing 
being,  according  to  our  mistaken  English  cus- 


MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS.        221 

torn,  anonymous,  neither  brought  her  any 
increase  of  fame  nor  carried  with  it  the  influence 
which  her  personality  as  a  teacher  would  have 
contributed  to  the  weight  of  what  she  wrote. 
Nevertheless,  she  repeatedly  in  her  letters, 
speaks  of  her  journalism  as  the  most  delightful 
work  of  her  life,  and  that  which  she  believed 
had  been  perhaps  the  most  useful  of  all  her 
efforts. 

Some  stories  with  sanitary  morals,  which  she 
now  contributed  to  Household  Words,  were 
admirably  written.  "  The  People  of  Bleaburn  " 
is  the  true  story  of  what  was  done  by  a  grand 
American  woman,  Mary  Ware,  when  she  hap- 
pened to  go  into  an  isolated  village  at  the  very 
time  that  half  its  inhabitants  were  lying  stricken 
down  by  an  epidemic.  "  Woodruffe,  the  Gar- 
dener," was  a  presentation  of  the  evils  of  living 
in  low-lying  damp  countries.  "  The  Marsh  Fog 
and  the  Sea  Breeze "  is  perhaps  the  most 
interesting  of  all  her  stories  since  the  Political 
Economy  tales,  which  it  much  resembles  in 
lightness  of  touch  and  in  practical  utility. 

A  series  of  slight  stories  under  the  general 
title  of  "Sketches  from  Life,"  was  also  contrib- 
uted at  this  time  to  the  Leader ;  they  were  all 
of  them  true  tales  and,  like  most  real  life  stories, 
extremely  pathetic.  The  most  touching  is  one 
called  "The  Old  Governess,"  describing  the 


222  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

feelings  with  which  an  educated  elderly  woman, 
past  her  work,  and  with  an  injured  hand,  sought 
refuge  in  the  workhouse;  and  how  she  con- 
ducted herself  there.  These  stories  were  re- 
published  in  a  volume  in  1856. 

A  series  of  descriptive  accounts  of  manu- 
factures, some  of  which  contain  most  graphic 
writing,  were  also  done  in  this  time.  These 
papers,  with  others  written  between  1845-55, 
were  re-published  in  a  volume  in  1861.*  There 
are  some  passages  which  I  am  greatly  tempted 
to  quote,  merely  as  specimens  of  the  perfection 
to  which  her  literary  style  had  at  this  time 
arrived.  It  is  now  a  style  of  that  clear  sim- 
plicity which  seems  so  easy  to  the  reader,  but 
which  is  in  reality  the  highest  triumph  of  the 
literary  artist.  The  inexperienced  reader  is  apt 
to  suppose  that  anybody  could  write  thus,  until 
perhaps  he  gains  some  glimpse  of  the  truth  by 
finding  the  powerful  effect  which  it  is  producing 
upon  his  thoughts  and  imagination.  The 
practiced  writer  knows  meanwhile  that,  simple 
though  the  vocabulary  appears,  he  could  not 
change  a  word  for  the  better  ;  and  easily  though 
the  sentences  swing,  the  rounding  of  their 
rhythm  is  an  achievement  to  admire.  I  may 
not  pause  to  quote,  but  I  may  especially  refer  to 
the  paper  on  "The  Life  of  a  Salmon,"  in  illus- 
tration of  this  eloquence  of  style. 

* 'Health,  Husbandry  and  Handicraft. 


MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS.        223 

Early  in  1852,  Harriet  Martineau  received  an 
invitation  from  the  Daily  News  to  send  a 
"  leader  "  occasionally.  Busily  engaged  as  she 
was  with  Comte,  and  with  work  for  other 
periodicals,  she  yet  gladly^  accepted  this  propo- 
sition ;  and  thus  began  her  connection  with 
that  paper  (then  newly  started)  which  was  so 
valuable  both  to  her  and  the  proprietors  of  the 
Daily  News.  During  the  early  summer  of  1852, 
she  wrote  two  "  leaders  "  each  week,  and,  before 
she  had  finished  Comte,  the  regular  contributions 
to  the  newspaper  had  grown  to  three  a  week. 

In  the  autumn  of  1852  she  made  a  two 
months'  tour  through  Ireland;  and  at  the 
request  of  the  editor  she  wrote  thence  a 
descriptive  letter  for  publication  in  the  Daily 
News,  almost  every  other  day.  The  letters 
described  the  state  of  Ireland  at  the  moment, 
with  observations  such  as  few  were  so  well 
qualified  as  she  to  make  upon  the  facts.  She 
did  now  what  Daniel  O'Connell  had  entreated 
her  to  do  years  before.  In  1839  the  Liberator 
begged  her  to  travel  through  his  country,  and 
without  bias  or  favor  represent  calmly  what 
really  was  the  political  and  social  condition 
of  Ireland.*  The  "Letters  from  Ireland" 

*  It  may  be  mentioned  that  a  similar  plea  was  made  to  her 
by  the  Crown  Prince  Oscar  of  Sweden,  who  desired  her  aid 
in  preparing  his  people  for  constitutional  reform ;  and  again, 


224  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

attracted  immediate  attention  as  they  appeared 
in  the  Daily  News ;  and  before  the  end  of  the 
year  they  were  re-published  in  a  volume.  At 
the  same  time  some  of  her  "leaders"  secured 
much  attention,  and  the  editor  pressed  her  to 
write  even  more  frequently.  During  1853  she 
wrote  on  an  average  four  articles  a  week,  and 
shortly  afterwards  the  number  rose  to  six — one 
in  each  day's  paper. 

The  tale  of  the  journalistic  work  of  these 
busy  two  years  is  not  yet  complete.  There  is 
a  long  article  of  hers  in  the  Westminster  Review 
for  January,  1853;  the  subject  is,  "The  Con- 
dition and  Prospects  of  Ireland." 

All  this  journalism  was  done  at  the  same  time 
that  the  heavy  sustained  task  of  the  condensa- 
tion of  Comte's  abstruse  and  bulky  work  was 
proceeding.  When  to  all  this  we  add  in  our 
recollection  her  home  duties,  and  when  the  fact 
is  borne  in  mind  that  it  was  her  common  prac- 
tice to  take  immense  walks,  not  infrequently 
covering  from  twelve  to  fifteen  miles  in  the  day, 
it  will  be  seen  that  the  mere  industry  and 
energy  that  she  showed  were  most  extraordi- 
nary. But,  besides  this,  her  work  was  of  a 
high  order  of  literary  excellence,  and  full  of 
intellectual  power. 

at  a  later  date,  by  Count  Porro,  of  Milan,  who  begged  that 
she  would  let  the  world  know  what  was  the  condition  of  Italy 
under  Austrian  rule. 


MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS.        22$ 

Such  incessant  labor  is  not  to  be  held  up  as 
altogether  an  example  to  be  imitated.  There 
are  some  few  whose  duty  it  is  to  consciously 
moderate  the  amount  of  labor  to  which  their 
mental  activity  impels  them  ;  and  no  one  ought 
to  allow  the  imperative  brain  to  overtax  the 
rest  of  the  system.  During  the  Irish  journey, 
Harriet  began  to  be  aware  of  experiencing 
unusual  fatigue.  She  gave  herself  no  sufficient 
pause,  however,  either  then  or  afterwards,  until 
she  could  not  help  doing  so. 

After  the  publication  of  Comte  she  wrote  a 
remarkable  article  for  the  Westminster  Review 
(anonymous  of  course)  on  "  England's  Foreign 
policy."  This  appeared  in  the  number  for 
January,  1854.  It  dealt  largely  with  the  im- 
pending struggle  between  England  and  Russia. 
True  Liberal  as  Harriet  Martineau  was,  she 
hated  with  all  her  soul,  not  the  Russian  people, 
but  the  hideous  despotism,  the  Asiatic  and 
barbarian  and  brutal  government  of  that  empire. 
She  foresaw  a  probable  great  struggle  in  the 
future  between  tyranny  and  freedom,  in  which 
Russia,  by  virtue  of  all  her  circumstances,  will 
be  the  power  against  which  the  free  peoples  of 
the  earth  will  have  to  fight.  Not  only,  then, 
did  she  fully  recognize  the  necessity  for  the 
immediate  resistance,  which  the  Crimean  war 
was,  to  the  encroachments  on  Europe  of  the 


226  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

Czar,  but  her  article  also  included  a  powerful 
plea  for  the  abolition  of  that  system  of  secrecy 
of  English  diplomacy,  by  which  it  is  rendered 
quite  possible  for  our  ministry  to  covertly  injure 
our  liberties,  and  to  take  action  behind  our 
backs  in  our  names  in  opposition  to  our  warm- 
est wishes.  The  article,  as  a  whole,  is  one  of 
her  most  powerful  pieces  of  writing,  and  had 
it  been  delivered  as  a  speech  in  parliament, 
it  would  undoubtedly  have  produced  a  great 
effect,  and  have  placed  her  high  amongst  the 
statesmen  of  that  critical  time. 

In  the  April  (1854)  number  of  the  same 
Review,  there  appeared  an  article  from  her  pen 
upon  "The  Census  of  1851."  This  paper  was 
not  a  mere  comment  upon  the  census  return, 
but  an  historical  review  of  the  progress  of 
the  English  people  from  barbarism  to  the  civili- 
zation of  our  century. 

In  the  spring  of  this  year  she  made  a  careful 
survey  of  the  beautiful  district  around  her 
home,  in  order  to  write  a  Complete  Guide  to  the 
Lakes  for  a  local  publisher.  She  was  already 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  neighborhood 
by  means  of  her  long  and  frequent  pedestrian 
excursions,  and  reminiscences  of  these  abound 
in  this  "Guide."  The  vivid  description  of  a 
storm  on  Blake  Fell,  for  instance,  is  a  faithful 
account  of  an  occurrence  during  a  visit  which 


MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS.        22? 

a  niece  and  nephew  from  Birmingham  paid  to 
her  soon  after  her  settlement  at  the  lakes. 
The  word-paintings  of  the  scenery,  too,  were 
drawn,  not  from  what  she  saw  on  one  set  visit 
only,  but  were  the  results  of  her  many  and 
frequent  pilgrimages  to  those  beauties  of  nature 
which  she  so  highly  appreciated.  But  still  she 
would  not  write  her  "Guide"  without  revisiting 
the  whole  of  the  district. 

The  most  interesting  point  about  this  book 
is  that  it  reveals  one  feature  of  her  character 
that  all  who  knew  her  mention,  but  that  very 
rarely  appears  in  her  writings.  This  is,  her 
keen  sense  of  humor.  She  dearly  loved  a  good 
story,  and  could  tell  one  herself  with  pith  and 
point.  Her  laugh  is  said  to  have  been  very 
hearty  and  ready.  Even  when  she  was  old  and 
ill,  she  was  always  amusable,  and  her  laughter 
at  any  little  bit  of  fun  would  even  then  ring 
through  her  house  as  gaily  as  though  the  out- 
burst had  been  that  of  a  child's  frank  merri- 
ment. It  is  surprising  that  this  sense  of  and 
enjoyment  in  the  ludicrous  so  rarely  appears 
in  her  writings.  But  I  think  it  was  because 
her  authorship  was  to  her  too  serious  a  vocation 
for  fun  to  come  into  it  often.  She  felt  it 
almost  as  the  exercise  of  a  priestly  function. 
It  was  earnest  and  almost  solemn  work  for  her 
to  write  what  might  be  multiplied  through  the 


228  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

printing-press  many  thousand  times  over,  and 
so  uttered  to  all  who  had  ears  to  hear.  She 
showed  that  this  was  so  by  the  greater  deliber- 
ateness  with  which  she  expressed  judgments  of 
persons  and  pronounced  opinions  of  any  kind 
in  her  writings  than  in  conversation.  Similarly 
she  showed  it  by  the  abeyance  of  her  humor 
in  writing;  it  was  no  more  possible  for  her  to 
crack  jokes  when  seated  at  her  desk  than  it 
would  have  been  for  a  priestess  when  standing 
by  her  tripod.  But  this  particular  book,  this 
"Guide,  written  for  neighborly  reasons,"  did 
not  admit  of  the  seriousness  of  her  intellect 
being  called  into  action,  and  the  result  is  that 
it  is  full  of  good  stories  and  lighted  up  with 
fun.  Her  enjoyment  in  such  stories  reveals 
that  sense  of  humor  which,  however  strongly 
visible  in  daily  intercourse,  rarely  appears  in 
her  books  in  any  other  form  than  in  her  perfect 
appreciation  of  the  line  between  the  sublime 
and  the  ludicrous. 

This  summer  brought  her  much  annoyance  of 
a  pecuniary  kind.  Her  generosity  about  money 
matters  were  repeatedly  shown,  from  the  time 
when  she  left  her  "Illustrations"  in  the  hands 
of  Mr.  C.  Fox,  onwards  ;  and  she  had  now  given 
what  was  for  her  means  an  extravagant  contribu- 
tion to  the  maintenance  of  the  West-minster 
Review,  taking  a  mortgage  on  the  proprietorship 


MATURITY  OF  HER  POWERS.        229 

for  her  only  security.  In  the  summer  of  1854, 
Dr.  Chapman,  its  publisher  and  editor,  failed ; 
and  an  attempt  was  made  to  upset  the  mortgage. 
Harriet  Martineau  gave  Chapman  the  most 
kindly  assistance  and  sympathy  in  his  affairs  at 
this  juncture ;  not  only  overlooking  the  probable 
loss  to  herself,  but  exerting  herself  to  write  two 
long  articles  for  the  next  number  of  the  Review 
(October,  1854). 

One  of  these  essays  is  on  "Rajah  Brooke;" 
a  name  that  has  half  faded  out  of  the  knowledge 
of  the  present  generation,  but  which  well  de- 
serves memory  from  the  heroic  devotedness, 
and  courage,  and  governing  faculty  of  the  man. 
His  qualities  were  those  most  congenial  to 
Harriet  Martineau;  and,  finding  his  enemies 
active  and  potent,  she  made  a  complete  study 
of  his  case  and  represented  it  in  full  in  an 
article  which  (like  her  previous  one  on  "  Foreign 
Policy")  was  so  statesman-like  and  so  wise, 
so  calm  and  yet  so  eloquent,  that  it  would  have 
made  her  famous  amongst  the  politicians  of 
the  day  had  it  been  delivered  as  a  speech  in  the 
House,  instead  of  being  printed  anonymously 
in  a  review  with  too  small  a  circulation  to  pay 
its  way. 

Nor  did  generous  aid  to  Dr.  Chapman  end 
here.  He  was  disappointed  of  some  expected 
contributions,  and  Miss  Martineau  wrote  him  a 


230  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

second  long  article  for  the  same  number  —  the 
one  on  "The  Crystal  Palace,"  which  concludes 
the  Westminster  for  October,  1854.  Her  two 
contributions  amounted  to  fifty-four  pages  of 
print  —  truly  a  generous  gift  to  an  impecunious 
magazine  editor. 

It  was  now  precisely  ten  years  since  her 
recovery  from  her  long  illness.  The  work  done 
in  that  time  shows  how  complete  the  recovery 
had  been.  Those  ten  happy  years  of  vigor  and 
of  labor  were,  she  was  wont  to  say,  Mr.  Atkin- 
son's gift  to  her.  Well  had  she  used  these  last 
years  of  her  strength. 


CHAPTER  X. 

IN    RETREAT  ;   JOURNALISM. 

Miss  MARTINEAU'S  health  failed  towards  the  end 
of  1854 ;  and  early  in  1855,  symptoms  of  a  dis- 
organized circulation  became  so  serious  that  she 
went  up  to  London  to  consult  physicians.  Dr. 
Latham  and  Sir  Thomas  Watson  both  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  she  was  suffering  from 
enlargement  and  enfeeblement  of  the  heart ; 
and,  in  accordance  with  her  wish  to  hear  a  can- 
did statement  of  her  case,  they  told  her  that 
her  life  would  probably  not  be  much  prolonged. 
In  short  they  gave  her  to  understand  that  she 
was  dying ;  and  her  own  sensations  confirmed 
the  impression.  She  had  frequent  sinking 
fits;  and  every  night  when  she  lay  down,  a 
struggle  for  breath  began,  which  lasted  some- 
times for  hours.  She  received  her  death  sen- 
tence then,  and  began  a  course  of  life  as  trying 
to  the  nerves  and  as  searching  a  test  of  char- 
acter as  could  well  be  imagined.  That  trial  she 
bore  nobly  for  twenty-one  long  suffering  years. 
She  was  carefully  carried  home,  and  at  once 


232  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

occupied  herself  with  making  every  preparation 
for  the  departure  from  earth  which  she  supposed 
to  be  impending.  The  first  business  was  to 
make  a  new  will ;  and  this  was  a  characteristic 
document.  After  ordering  that  her  funeral 
should  be  conducted  in  the  plainest  manner,  and 
at  the  least  possible  cost,  she  continued  thus  :  — 
"  It  is  my  desire,  from  an  interest  in  the  pro- 
gress of  scientific  investigation,  that  my  skull 
should  be  given  to  Henry  George  Atkinson,  of 
Upper  Gloucester  Place,  and  also  my  brain,  if 
my  death  take  place  within  such  distance  of 
the  said  Henry  George  Atkinson's  then  present 
abode  as  to  enable  him  to  have  it  for  purposes 
of  scientific  investigation."  Her  property  was 
then  ordered  to  bear  various  small  charges, 
including  one  of  £200  to  Mrs.  Chapman  for 
writing  a  conclusion  to  the  testator's  auto- 
biography, over  and  above  a  fourth  share  of 
the  profits  on  the  sale  of  the  whole  work  after 
the  first  edition."  "The  Knoll  "  was  bequeathed 
to  her  favorite  "little  sister,"  Ellen.  The 
remainder  of  her  possessions  were  divided 
amongst  all  her  brothers  and  sisters,  or  their 
heirs,  with  as  much  impartiality  as  though  she 
held,  with  Maggie  Tulliver's  aunt  Glegg,  that 
"  in  the  matter  of  wills,  personal  qualities  were 
subordinate  to  the  great  fundamental  fact  of 
blood."  Although  mesmerism  had  estranged 


IN  RETREAT;  JOURNALISM.          233 

her  from  a  sister,  and  theology  from  a  brother, 
she  made  no  display  of  bitter  feelings  towards 
them  and  theirs  in  her  last  will. 

All  her  personal  affairs  being  made  as  orderly 
as  possible,  she  proceeded  to  write  her  Autobi- 
ography. Readers  of  that  interesting  but  mis- 
leading work  must  bear  in  mind  that  it  was  a 
very  hasty  production.  The  two  large  volumes 
were  written  in  a  few  months;  the  MS.  was 
sent  to  the  printer  as  it  was  produced,  the  sheets 
for  the  first  edition  were  printed  off,  then  the 
matter  was  stereotyped,  and  the  sheets  and 
plates  were  packed  up  in  the  office  of  the 
printer,  duly  insured,  and  held  ready  for  imme- 
diate publication  after  her  death.  She  wrote 
in  this  hot  haste  with  "the  shadow  cloaked 
from  head  to  foot "  at  her  right  hand.  So 
much  reason  had  she  to  believe  that  her  very 
days  were  numbered,  that  she  wrote  the  latter 
part  of  her  Autobiography  before  the  first  por- 
tion. She  had  already  given  forth,  in  House- 
hold Education  and  The  Crofton  Boys,  the  results 
of  her  childish  experiences  of  life  ;  and  she  was 
now  specially  anxious  not  to  die  without  leaving 
behind  her  a  definite  account  of  the  later  course 
of  her  intellectual  history. 

No  one  who  knew  her  considers  that  she  did 
herself  justice  in  the  Autobiography.  It  is  hard 
and  censorious ;  it  displays  vanity,  both  in  its 


234  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

depreciation  of  her  own  work,  and  in  its  recital 
of  the  petty  slights  and  insults  which  had  been 
offered  to  her  from  time  to  time  ;  it  is  aggres- 
sive, as  though  replying  to  enemies  rather  than 
appealing  to  friends  ;  and  no  one  of  either  the 
finer  or  the  softer  qualities  of  her  nature  is  at 
all  adequately  indicated.  It  is,  in  short,  the 
least  worthy  of  her  true  self  of  all  the  writings 
of  her  life. 

The  reasons  of  this  unfortunate  fact  was  not 
far  to  seek.  Her  rationalism,  and  the  abuse 
and  moral  ill-usage  which  she  had  incurred  by 
her  avowal  of  her  anti-theological  opinions,  were 
still  new  to  her.  Her  very  thoughts,  replacing 
as  they  did  the  ideas  which  she  held  without 
examination  for  some  twenty  years  (the  time 
which  intervened  between  her  devotional  writ- 
ings and  her  Eastern  Life)  were  still  so  far  new 
that  they  had  not  the  unconsciousness  and  the 
quiet  placidity  which  habit  alone  gives  ;  for  new 
ideas,  like  new  clothes,  sit  uneasily,  and  ar.e 
noticeable  to  their  wearer,  however  carefully 
they  may  have  been  fitted  before  adoption. 
Again,  the  announcement  in  the  press  that 
her  illness  was  fatal  revived  the  discussion  of_ 
her  infidelity,  and  brought  down  upon  her  a 
whole  avalanche  of  signed  and  anonymous  let- 
ters, of  little  tracts,  awe-inspiring  hymns,  and 
manuals  of  divinity.  The  letters  were  contro- 


IN  RETREAT;  JOURNALISM.          235 

versial,  admonishing,  minatory,  or  entreating; 
but  whatever  their  character  they  were  all 
agreed  upon  one  point,  viz.,  that  her  unbelief  in 
Christianity  was  a  frightful  sin,  of  which  she 
had  been  willfully  guilty.  They  all  agreed  in 
supposing  that  it  was  within  her  own  volition  to 
resume  her  previous  faith,  and  that  she  would 
not  only  go  to  eternal  perdition  if  she  did  not 
put  on  again  her  old  beliefs,  but  that  she  would 
richly  deserve  to  do  so  for  her  willful  wickedness. 
Thus,  as  Miss  Arnold  remarked  to  me,  the 
moment  at  which  she  wrote  the  Autobiography 
was  the  most  aggressive  and  unpleasant  of  her 
whole  life.  Conscious  as  she  was  of  the  purity 
of  her  motives  in  uttering  her  philosophical 
opinions,  she  found  herself  suddenly  spoken  to 
by  a  multitude,  whom  she  could  not  but  know 
were  mentally  and  morally  incapable  of  judging 
her,  as  a  sinner,  worthy  of  their  pity  and  repro- 
bation. Knowing  that  she  had  long  been  rec- 
ognized as  a  teacher,  in  advance  of  the  mass  of 
society  in  knowledge  and  power  of  thought,  here 
was  a  crowd  of  people  talking  to  her  in  the 
tones  which  they  might  have  adopted  towards 
some  ignorant  inmate  of  a  prison.  What  won- 
der that  her  wounded  self-esteem  seemed  for  a 
little  while  to  pass  into  vanity,  when  she  had  to 
remind  the  world,  from  which  such  insults  were 
pouring  in,  of  all  that  she  had  done  for  its 


236  HAKRIET  MARTINEAU. 

instruction  in  the  past  ?  What  wonder  that  the 
strength  which  was  summed  up  to  bear  with 
fortitude  this  species  of  modern  martyrdom, 
seemed  to  give  a  tone  of  coldness  and  hardness 
to  writing  of  so  personal  a  kind  ?  Then  the 
extreme  haste  with  which  the  writing  and  print- 
ing were  done  gave  no  time  for  the  subsidence 
of  such  painful  impressions  ;  and  great  physi- 
cal suffering  and  weakness,  together  with  the 
powerful  depressing  medicines  which  were  being 
employed,  added  to  the  difficulty  of  writing  with 
calmness,  and  with  a  full  possession  of  the  suf- 
ferer's whole  nature.  In  short,  an  autobiogra- 
phy could  not  have  been  written  under  less 
favorable  conditions.  All  things  taken  into 
account,  it  is  no  wonder  that  those  who  knew 
and  loved  her  whole  personality  were  shocked 
and  amazed  at  the  inadequate  presentation  given 
of  it  in  those  volumes.  The  sensitive,  unselfish, 
loving,  domestic  woman,  and  the  just,  careful, 
disinterested,  conscientious  and  logical  author, 
were  alike  obscured  rather  than  revealed ;  and 
the  biographer  whom  she  chose  to  complete  the 
work  had  neither  the  intimate  personal  knowl- 
edge, the  mental  faculty  which  might  have  sup- 
plied its  place,  nor  the  literary  skill  requisite  to 
present  a  truer  picture. 

Her    Autobiography   completed,    the    plates 
engraved,    and    all     publishing    arrangements 


IN  RETREAT;  JOURNALISM.          237 

made,  she  might,  had  she  been  an  ordinary 
invalid,  have  settled  down  into  quiet  after  so 
hard-working  a  life.  Harriet  Martineau  could 
not  do  this.  Her  labors  continued  uninterrupt- 
edly, and  were  pursued  to'  the  utmost  limit 
which  her  illness  would  allow.  She  did  not 
cease  (except  during  the  few  months  that  the 
Autobiography  was  in  hand)  writing  her  "  lead- 
ers "  for  the  Daily  News.  Every  week  it  con- 
tained articles  by  her,  instructing  thousands  of 
readers.  Yet  she  was  very  ill.  She  never  left 
her  home  again,  after  that  journey  to  London 
early  in  1855.  Sometimes  she  was  well  enough 
to  go  out  upon  her  terrace  ;  and  she  frequently 
sat  in  her  porch,  which  was  a  bower,  in  the 
summer  time,  of  clematis,  honeysuckle,  and 
passion-flowers,  intermingled  with  ivy ;  but  she 
could  do  no  more.  She  was  given,  as  soon  as 
she  became  ill,  the  daughterly  care  of  her 
niece,  Maria,  the  daughter  of  her  elder  brother, 
Robert  Martineau,  of  Birmingham ;  and  no 
mother  ever  received  tenderer  care  or  more 
valuable  assistance  from  her  own  child  than 
Harriet  Martineau  did  from  the  sensible  and 
affectionate  girl  whose  life  was  thenceforth 
devoted  to  her  service.  Maria  once  tried  if 
her  aunt  could  be  taken  out  of  her  own  grounds 
in  a  bath-chair ;  but  before  they  reached  the 
gates  a  fainting  fit  came  on,  with  such  appalling 


238  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

symptoms  of  stoppage  of  the  heart  that  the 
experiment  was  never  repeated.  Sometimes 
Miss  Martineau  would  be  well  enough  to  see 
visitors  ;  more  frequently,  however,  those  whom 
she  would  most  have  liked  to  talk  with  had  to 
be  sent  away  by  the  doctor's  orders.  But, 
through  it  all,  her  work  continued. 

Soon  after  the  Autobiography  was  finished, 
she  wrote  a  long  paper  upon  a  most  important 
subject,  and  one  which  she  felt  to  be  a  source 
of  the  gravest  anxiety  for  the  future  of  English 
politics — the  true  sphere  of  State  interference 
with  daily  life.  The  common  ignorance  and 
carelessness  upon  this  point  she  believed  to  be 
the  most  painful  and  perilous  feature  of  our 
present  situation. 

It  has  been  brought  to  light  by  beneficent 
action  which  is,  in  another  view,  altogether 
encouraging.  Our  benevolence  towards  the 
helpless,  and  our  interest  in  personal  morality, 
have  grown  into  a  sort  of  public  pursuit ;  and 
they  have  taken  such  a  hold  on  us  that  we  may 
fairly  hope  that  the  wretched  and  the  wronged 
will  never  more  be  thrust  out  of  sight.  But, 
in  the  pursuit  of  our  new  objects,  we  have 
fallen  back  —  far  further  than  1688 — in  the 
principle  of  our  legislative  proposals  —  under- 
taking to  provide  by  law  against  personal  vices, 
and  certain  special  social  contracts. 


IN  RETREAT;  JOURNALISM.          239 

Her  devotion  to  freedom,  and  her  belief  in 
personal  liberty,  led  her  to  write  an  article  on 
"  Meddlesome  Legislation  "  for  the  Westminster 
Review. 

Her  pecuniary  sacrifices  for  the  Review  had 
been  made  because  she  looked  upon  it  as  an 
organ  for  free  speech.  Her  feelings  may  be 
imagined  when  the  editor  refused  to  insert  this 
article,  not  on  any  ground  of  principle,  but 
merely  because  it  spoke  too  freely  of  some  of 
the  advocates  of  meddlesome  factory  laws. 
The  essay  was  published  however,  as  a  pam- 
phlet, and  had  such  influence  upon  a  bill  then 
before  Parliment  that  the  Association  of  Factory 
Occupiers  requested  to  be  allowed  to  signalize 
their  appreciation  of  it  by  giving  one  hundred 
guineas  in  her  name  to  a  charity.  A  somewhat 
similar  piece  of  work  followed  in  the  next  year, 
a  rather  lengthy  pamphlet  On  Corporate  Tradi- 
tions and  National  Rights.  She  offered  nothing 
more  to  the  Westminster  Review,  however,  for 
some  time;  not,  indeed,  until  that  subject  in 
which  she  took  so  profound  an  interest,  the  wel- 
fare of  the  United  States,  and  the  progress  of 
the  anti-slavery  cause,  seemed  to  require  of 
her  that  she  should  avail  herself  of  every  pos- 
sible means  of  addressing  the  public  upon  it. 
Then,  in  1857,  she  wrote  an  article  on  The 
Manifest  Destiny  of  the  American  Union,  which 


240  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

appeared  in  the  Westminster  for  July  of  that 
year. 

Having  thus  signalized  her  forgiveness  of 
that  Review,  she  went  on  writing  again  for  it 
for  a  little  while.  In  the  October  number  of 
the  same  year  there  was  a  paper  by  her  on 
Female  ^Dress  in  1857.  Crinoline  had  then 
lately  been  introduced  by  the  Empress  of  the 
French.  If  one  good,  rousing  argument  could 
have  stood  in  the  path  of  fashion,  this  amusing 
and  vigorous  paper  from  Harriet  Martineau's 
sick-room  might  have  answered  the  purpose. 
But,  alas  !  crinoline  flourished;  and  five  whole 
years  later  on  was  still  so  enormous  that  she 
took  up  her  parable  against  it  once  more,  in 
Once  a  Week,  as  the  cause  of  "willful  murder." 

About  this  time  she  determined  to  assume 
the  prefix  of  "Mrs."  "There  were  so  many 
Misses  Martineau,"  she  said  ;  and,  besides,  she 
felt  the  absurdity  of  a  woman  of  mature  years 
bearing  only  the  same  complimentary  title  as  is 
accorded  to  a  little  girl  in  short  frocks  at  school. 
Her  cards  and  the  envelopes  of  her  friends  bore 
thenceforward  the  inscription,  "  Mrs.  Harriet 
Martineau." 

Although  she  continued  to  write,  contributing 
almost  every  day  to  the  Daily  News,  as  well  as 
to  these  larger  periodicals,  she  was.,  it  must  be 
remembered,  an  invalid.  Her  health  fluctuated 


IN  RETREA  T;  JOURNALISM.         241 

from  day  to  day ;  but  it  may  as  well  be  expli- 
citly stated  that  she  was  more  or  less  ill  during 
the  whole  of  the  rest  of  her  life.  She  suffered  a 
considerable  amount  daily  of  actual  pain,  which 
was  partly  the  consequence  of  the  medicines  pre- 
scribed for  her,  and  partly  the  result  of  the  dis- 
placement of  the  internal  organs  arising,  as  her 
doctors  led  her  to  suppose,  from  the  enlargement 
of  the  heart ;  but  in  reality,  as  was  afterwards 
discovered,  from  the  growth  of  a  tumor.  Her 
most  constant  afflictions  were  the  difficulty  of 
breathing,  dizziness,  and  dimness  of  sight, 
resulting  from  disturbed  circulation.  At  irreg- 
ular, but  not  infrequent,  intervals  she  was  seized 
with  fainting-fits,  in  which  her  heart  appeared 
to  entirely  cease  beating  for  a  minute  or  two  ; 
and  it  was  not  certain  from  day  to  day  but  that 
she  might  die  in  one  of  these  attacks. 

Not  only  did  she  continue  her  work  under 
these  conditions,  but  her  interest  in  her  poor 
neighbors  remained  unabated.  There  is  more 
than  one  man  now  living  in  Ambleside  who 
traces  a  part  of  his  prosperity  to  the  interest 
which  she  from  her  sick-room  displayed  in  his 
progress.  A  photograph  of  her,  still  sold  in 
Ambleside,  was  taken  in  her  own  drawing-room 
by  a  young  beginner  whom  she  allowed  thus  to 
benefit  himself.  He  and  several  others  were 
given  free  access  to  her  library.  A  sickly 


242  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

young  woman  in  the  village  was  made  a  regular 
sharer  in  the  good  things  —  the  wine,  the  turtle 
soup,  the  game  and  the  flowers  —  which  devo- 
ted friends  sent  frequently  to  cheer  Harriet 
Martineau's  retirement.  Every  Christmas, 
there  was  a  party  of  the  oldest  inhabitants  of 
Ambleside  invited  to  spend  a  long  day  in  the 
kitchen  of  the  "  Knoll."  The  residents  in  her 
own  cottages  looked  upon  her  less  as  a  land- 
lady than  as  a  friend  to  whom  to  send  in  every 
difficulty. 

Nor  did  she  cease  to  do  whatever  was  possi- 
ble to  her  in  the  local  public  life.  The  ques- 
tion of  Church  Rates  was  approaching  a  crisis 
when  she  was  taken  ill ;  and  when  the  Amble- 
side  Quakers  resolved  to  organize  resistance  to 
payment  of  these  rates,  they  found  Harriet 
Martineau  ready  to  help.  The  householders 
who  refused  to  pay  were  summoned  before  the 
local  bench;  and  it  was  Harriet  Martineau 
whom  the  justices  selected  to  be  distrained 
upon ;  but  events  marched  rapidly,  and  the  dis- 
traint was  not  made. 

The  next  article  that  she  contributed  to  the 
Westminster  Review  appeared  in  the  July  (1858) 
number,  and,  under  the  title  of  The  Last  Days 
of  Church  Rates,  gave  an  account  of  the  efforts 
by  which  Non-conformists  in  all  parts  of  the 
country  were  rendering  this  impost  impossible. 


IN  RETREAT;  JOURNALISM.         243 

In  October,  1858,  there  was  another  long 
article  in  the  Westminster,  entitled  Travel  dur- 
ing the  Last  Half-Century.  She  was  now,  how- 
ever, growing  tired  of  wasting  her  work  in  that 
quarter,  and,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  she 
sought  a  more  influential  and  appreciative 
medium  for  her  longer  communications  with 
the  public. 

Subjects  which  could  be  treated  briefly  were 
always  taken  up  as  "leaders"  for  the  Daily 
News.  Lengthier  topics,  too,  were  occasion- 
ally dealt  with  in  those  columns  in  the  form  of 
serial  articles.  One  set  of  papers  on  The 
Endowed  Schools  of  Ireland,  were  contributed 
in  this  manner,  in  1857,  to  the  Daily  News, 
and  afterwards  reprinted  in  a  small  volume. 
In  that  same  year  occurred  the  terrible  Indian 
crisis  which  compelled  the  people  of  this  coun- 
try to  give,  for  a  time,  the  attention  which  they 
so  begrudge  to  their  great  dependency.  Miss 
Martineau  then  wrote  a  series  of  articles,  under 
the  title  of  The  History  of  British  Rule  in 
India,  for  the  Daily  News,  and  this  most  useful 
work  was  immediately  re-published  in  a  volume. 
Alas !  even  she  could  not  make  so  involved  and 
distant  a  story  interesting  ;  but  her  book  was 
clear  and  vivid,  and  whenever  it  dealt  with  the 
practical  problem  of  the  moment,  it  was  full  of 
wisdom  and  conscientiousness.  This  volume 


244  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

was  immediately  followed  by  Suggestions 
towards  the  Future  Government  of  India.  The 
preface  of  the  first  is  dated  October,  1857  ; 
and  that  of  the  second,  January,  1858.  The 
key-note  of  these  books  is  a  plea  for  the  gov- 
ernment of  India  according  to  Indian  ideas  ; 
and,  as  a  natural  consequence,  its  government 
with  the  assistance  of  its  natives.  Courage  as 
well  as  insight  were  required  at  that  particular 
moment  of  popular  passion  to  put  forward 
these  calm,  statesman-like  ideas.  The  wisdom 
and  the  practical  value  of  the  books  cannot  be 
shown  by  extracts  ;  but  one  paragraph  may  be 
given  as  a  faint  indication  of  the  tone  :  "  If 
instead  of  attempting  to  hold  India  as  a  pre- 
serve of  English  destinies,  a  nursery  of  British 
fortunes,  we  throw  it  open  with  the  aim  of 
developing  India  for  the  Indians,  by  means  of 
British  knowledge  and  equity,  we  shall  find  our 
own  highest  advantage,  political  and  material, 
and  may  possibly  recognize  brethren  and  com- 
rades at  length,  where  we  have  hitherto  per- 
ceived only  savages,  innocents,  or  foes."*  Such 
was  the  spirit  to  which  the  Daily  News,  under 
Harriet  Martineau's  hand,  led  the  people  at  a 
moment  of  great  political  excitement.  The 
amplest  testimony  to  the  practical  wisdom  of 
the  suggestions  that  she  made  was  borne  by 

*Future  Government  of  India,  p.  94. 


IN  RETREAT  j  JOURNALISM.          24$ 

those  Anglo-Indians  who  were  qualified  to 
judge. 

In  June,  1858,  she  wrote  the  first  letter,  which 
lies  before  me,  to  her  relative,  Mr.  Henry  Reeve, 
the  editor  of  the  Edinburgh  Review.  In  this, 
after  telling  him  that  she  never  before  has 
offered  or  wished  to  write  for  that  Review, 
because  in  politics  she  had  generally  disagreed 
with  it  (to  her,  it  may  be  remarked  in  passing, 
Toryism  was  less  odious  than  official  Whigism), 
she  says  that  she  has  now  a  subject  in  view 
which  she  thinks  would  be  suitable  for  the  pages 
of  the  good  old  Whig  organ.  Before  entering 
into  details,  she  begs  him  to  tell  her  frankly  if 
any  article  will  be  refused  merely  because  it 
comes  from  her.  She  adds  that  her  health  is  so 
sunk  and  her  life  so  precarious,  that  all  her 
engagements  have  to  be  made  with  an  explan- 
ation of  the  chances  against  their  fulfillment ; 
still  she  does  write  a  good  deal,  and  with  higher 
success  than  in  her  younger  days. 

Mr.  Reeve  replied  cordially  inviting  her  con- 
tributions, and  the  result  was  the  establishment 
both  of  an  intimate  correspondence  with  him, 
and  of  a  relationship  with  the  Review  under 
his  charge,  which  lasted  until  she  could  write 
no  more. 

The  particular  subject  which  she  offered  Mr. 
Reeve  at  first  did  not  seem  to  him  a  suitable 


246  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

one.  The  title  of  it  was  to  have  been  French 
Invasion  Panics  ;  but  as  Mr.  Reeve  did  not  like 
the  idea,  the  paper  was  not  written.  But  for 
the  Edinburgh  of  April,  1859,  sne  wrote  a  long 
article  on  Female  Industry,  which  attracted 
much  attention.  Its  purpose  was  to  show  how 
greatly  the  conditions  of  women's  lives  are 
altered  in  this  century  from  what  they  were  of 
old.  "A  very  large  proportion  of  the  women 
of  England  earn  their  own  bread ;  and  there  is 
no  saying  how  much  good  may  be  done  by  a 
timely  recognition  of  this  simple  truth.  A 
social  organization  framed  for  a  community  of 
which  half  stayed  at  home  while  the  other  half 
went  out  to  work,  cannot  answer  the  purposes 
of  a  society  of  which  a  quarter  remains  at  home 
while  three-quarters  go  out  to  work."  After 
considering  in  detail,  with  equal  benevolence 
and  wisdom,  the  condition  of  the  various  classes 
of  women  workers  —  those  employed  in  agricul- 
ture, mines,  fishing,  domestic  service,  needle- 
work, and  shop-keeping,  and  suggesting,  in 
passing,  the  schools  of  cookery  which  have  since 
become  established  facts,  the  article  concludes  : 
"  The  tale  is  plain  enough.  So  far  from  our 
countrywomen  being  all  maintained  as  a  matter 
of  fact  by  us,  the  'bread-winners,'  three  millions 
out  of  six  of  adult  English  women  work  for 
subsistence,  and  two  out  of  the  three  in 


IN  RET  RE  A  T;  JOURNALISM.         247 

independence.  With  this  new  condition  of 
affairs  new  duties  and  new  views  must  be 
adopted.  Old  obstructions  must  be  removed  ; 
and  the  aim  must  be  set  before  us,  as  a  nation 
as  well  as  in  private  life,  to  provide  for  the  free 
development  and  full  use  of  the  powers  of  every 
member  of  the  community."  It  scarcely  needs 
to  be  pointed  out  that  here  she  went  quietly  but 
surely  to  the  foundation  of  that  whole  class  of 
new  claims  and  demands  on  behalf  of  the 
women  of  our  modern  world,  of  which  she  was 
so  valuable  an  advocate,  and  for  the  granting  of 
which  her  life  was  so  excellent  a  plea.  In  these 
few  sentences  she  at  one  time  displayed  the 
character  of  the  changes  required,  and  the 
reasons  why  it  is  now  necessary,  as  it  did  not 
use  to  be,  that  women  should  be  completely 
enfranchised,  industrially  and  otherwise. 

The  year  1859  was  a  very  busy  one.  Besides 
the  long  article  just  mentioned,  she  published 
in  April  of  that  year  quite  a  large  volume  on 
England  and  her  Soldiers.  The  book  was  written 
to  aid  the  work  which  her  beloved  friend.  Flor- 
ence Nightingale,  had  in  hand  for  the  benefit  of 
the  army.  It  was,  in  effect,  a  popularization  of 
all  that  had  come  out  before  the  Royal  Com- 
mission on  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  army  ; 
with  the  additional  advantage  of  the  views  and 
opinions  of  Florence  Nightingale,  studied  at 


248  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

first  hand.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  features 
of  the  book  is  the  hearty  and  generous  delight 
with  which  the  one  illustrious  lady  recounts  the 
efforts,  the  sacrifices,  and  the  triumphs  of  the 
other. 

In  1859,  also,  Mrs.  Martineau  began  to  write 
frequent  letters  for  publication  to  the  American 
Anti-Slavery  Standard,  The  affairs  of  the  Re- 
public were  plainly  approaching  a  crisis ;  and 
those  in  America  who  knew  how  well-informed 
she  was  on  the  politics  of  both  countries,  and 
on  political  principles,  were  anxious  to  have  the 
guidance  that  only  she  could  give  in  the  difficult 
time  that  was  approaching.  During  the  three 
years,  1859  to  1861,  she  sent  over  ninety  long 
articles  for  publication  in  America. 

An  article  on  Trades  Unions,  denouncing  the 
tyranny  of  men  in  fustian  coats  sitting  round  a 
beer-shop  table,  as  to  the  full  as  mischievous  as 
that  of  crowned  and  titled  despots,  appeared  in 
the  Edinburgh  Review  for  October,  1859.  I*1 
the  July  (1860)  issue  of  the  same  Review  she 
wrote  on  Russia,  and  in  October  of  that  year 
on  The  American  Union. 

Besides  these  large  undertakings,  she  was 
writing  during  these  years  almost  weekly  arti- 
cles, on  one  topic  or  another,  for  the  illustrated 
periodical  Once  a  Week ;  whilst  the  Daily  News 
"  leaders  "  continued  without  intermission  dur- 

\ 


IN  RETREAT;   JOURNALISM.          249 

ing  the  whole  time.  As  regards  these  latter,  I 
shall  presently  mention  when  she  entirely  ceased 
to  write  ;  but  in  the  meanwhile  I  do  not  attempt 
to  follow  them  in  detail.  Nothing  that  I  could 
say  would  give  any  adequate  impression  of  their 
quality.  That  maybe  sufficiently  judged  by  the 
fact  that  the  newspaper  in  which  they  were 
issued  was  one  of  the  best  of  the  great  London 
dailies;  and  that,  during  her  time,  it  touched 
the  highest  point  of  influence  and  circulation, 
as  the  organ  of  no  clique,  but  the  consistent 
advocate  of  high  principles,  and  just,  consistent, 
sound  (not  mere  "Liberal  Party")  political 
action.  As  to  the  subjects  of  the  Daily  News 
articles,  they  range  over  the  whole  field  of 
public  interests,  excepting  only  those  "hot  and 
hot "  topics  which  had  to  be  treated  immediately 
that  fresh  news  about  them  reached  London. 
Those  who  were  with  Mrs.  Martineau  tell  me 
that  the  only  difficulty  with  her  was  to  choose 
what  subject  she  would  treat  each  day,  out  of 
the  many  that  offered.  She  kept  up  an  exten- 
sive correspondence,  and  read  continually;  and 
her  fertile  mind,  highly  cultivated  as  it  was 
by  her  life-long  studies,  had  some  original  and 
valuable  contribution  to  make  upon  the  vast 
variety  of  the  topics  of  which  each  day  brought 
suggestions. 

The  marvel  that  a  sick  lady,  shut  up  in  her 


250  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

house  in  a  remote  village,  could  thus  keep  touch 
with  and  take  an  active  part  in  all  the  interests 
and  movements  of  the  great  world,  increases 
the  more  it  is  considered.  The  very  corres- 
pondence by  which  she  was  aided  in  knowing 
and  feeling  what  the  public  mind  was  stirred 
about,  was  in  itself  a  heavy  labor,  and  a  great 
tax  upon  such  feeble  strength  as  she  possessed. 
The  letters  with  which -Mr.  Reeve  has  favored 
me  give  glimpses  of  how  ideas  and  calls  came 
to  her  sometimes.  Here  is  a  graphic  account, 
for  instance,  of  a  man  riding  up  with  a  telegram 
from  Miss  Nightingale —  "Agitate !  agitate  !  for 
Lord  de  Grey  in  place  of  Sir  G.  Cornewall 
Lewis" — which  gives  the  first  intimation  in 
Ambleside  that  the  post  of  War  Minister  is 
vacant.  The  newspaper  arrives  later,  and 
Lewis'  death  is  learned;  so  a  "leader"  is 
written  early  next  morning,  to  catch  the  coach, 
and  appears  in  the  following  morning's  Daily 
News.  Presently  Lord  de  Grey  is  appointed, 
and  then  the  two  women  friends  rejoice  to- 
gether in  the  chance  of  getting  army  reforms 
made  by  a  minister  who,  they  hope,  will  not  be 
a  slave  to  royal  influences.  Another  time  she 
tells  Mr.  Reeve  how  she  is  treating  the  Rever- 
sion of  My  sore  in  the  Daily  News,  on  the  sugges- 
tion of  a  man  learned  in  Indian  affairs ;  and 
again,  that  she  is  reviewing  a  book  of  Eastern 


IN  RETREAT;  JOURNALISM.          2$  I 

travel  at  the  request  of  a  friend.  In  fine,  there 
-were  constant  letters  seeking  to  engage  her 
interest  and  aid  in  every  description  of  reforms, 
and  for  all  kinds  of  movements  in  public  affairs. 

But  with  all  the  wide  circle  of  suggesting  cor- 
respondents, the  wonder  of  the  prolific  mind 
working  so  actively  from  the  Ambleside  hermit- 
age remains  untouched.  Perhaps  I  cannot 
better  show  how  much  she  did,  and  how  wide  a 
range  she  covered,  in  Daily  News  "  leaders," 
than  by  giving  a  list  of  the  articles  of  a  single 
year.  I  take  1861,  really  at  random.  It  was 
simply  the  page  at  which  the  office  ledger  hap- 
pened to  be  open  before  me. 

Here  are  the  subjects  of  her  Daily  News 
"leaders"  in  1861  : 

The  American  Union  ;  The  King  of  Prussia ; 
Arterial  Drainage ;  Sidney  Herbert  ;  The  Se- 
cession of  South  Carolina;  Cotton  Supply; 
Laborers'  Dwellings  ;  The  American  Difficulty 
(two  days)  ;  Destitution  and  its  Remedy  ;  The 
American  Revolution  ;  Cotton  Culture ;  The 
American  Union  ;  Indian  Affairs  ;  America ; 
North  and  South  ;  American  Politics  ;  Agricul- 
tural Labor ;  The  London  Bakers ;  President 
Buchanan  ;  The  Southern  Confederacy  ;  United 
States  Population ;  The  Duchess  of  Kent ; 
Indian  Famines  ;  Agricultural  Statistics  ;  Presi- 
dent Lincoln's  Address  ;  Indian  Currency ; 
American  Census  ;  The  Southern  Confederacy ; 


252  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

The  Action  of  the  South ;  The  Census ;  America 
and  Cotton  ;  The  American  Envoy  ;  Lord  Can- 
ning's Address  ;  The  American  Crisis  ;  Spain 
and  San  Domingo ;  East  Indian  Irrigation ; 
Water-mills ;  Hayti  and  San  Domingo ;  The 
Conflict  in  America ;  American  Movements ; 
The  Secession  Party ;  The  American  Contest ; 
The  Literary  Fund ;  Working-men's  Visit  to 
Paris  ;  Mr.  Clay's  Letter  ;  The  American  Con- 
test ;  Money's  "Java"  (four  articles) ;  Mr.  Doug- 
las; Our  American  Relations  ;  Lord  Campbell; 
Results  of  American  Strife  ;  Our  Cotton  Sup- 
ply ;  American  Union  ;  Soldiers'  Homes  ;  Indian 
Irrigation;  San  Domingo;  American  Move- 
ments ;  Slavery  in  America ;  The  Morrill  Tariff ; 
Drainage  in  Agriculture  ;  Neutrality  with  Amer- 
ica; The  Builders'  Strike  ;  Lord  Herbert ;  Lord 
Elgin's  Government  ;  The  Builders'  Dispute  ; 
The  Strike;  The  American  Contest;  Indian 
Famines ;  Syrian  Improvement  ;  Affairs  of 
Hayti ;  Cotton  Supply ;  The  American  War 
and  Slavery  ;  Mr  Cameron  and  General  Butler  ; 
Post-office  Robberies  ;  The  American  Press  ; 
Mrs.  Stowe ;  The  Morrill  Tariff ;  American 
Affairs  ;  Domestic  Servants ;  The  Education 
Minutes ;  The  Georgian  Circular  ;  French  Free 
Trade ;  The  Fremont  Resolution ;  Laborers' 
Improvidence  ;  American  Humiliation ;  The 
Education  Code  ;.  A  Real  Social  Evil  ;  Captain 
Jervis  in  America ;  The  American  Contest ; 
Indian  Cotton ;  Slaves  in  America ;  The  Prince 
of  Wales;  American  Movements;  Lancashire 
Cotton  Trade;  India  and  Cotton  ;  Cotton  Grow- 
ing ;  The  Herbert  Testimonial ;  Captain  Wilkes' 


AV  RETREAT;   JOURNALISM.          253 

Antecedents  ;  Arterial  Drainage  ;  The  Ameri- 
can Controversy ;  Land  in  India  ;  Slaves  in 
America  ;  Death  of  Prince  Albert ;  Slavery  ; 
Loyalty  in  Canada  ;  Review  of  the  Year,  five 
columns  long. 

This  gives  a  total  of  one  hundred  and  nine 
leading  articles,  in  that  one  year,  on  political 
and  social  affairs.  In  the  same  year  she  wrote 
to  the  Boston  Anti-Slavery  Standaid  as  much 
matter  as  would  have  made  about  forty-five 
"leaders;"  and  during  the  same  period  she 
regularly  contributed  to  Once  a  Week*  a  fort- 
nightly article  on  some  current  topic,  and 
also  a  series  of  biographical  sketches  entitled 
"  Representative  Men."  These  Once  a  Week 
articles  were  all  much  longer  than  "leaders  ;" 
the  year's  aggregate  of  space  filled,  in  1861,  is 
two  hundred  and  eighty-one  of  the  closely 
printed  columns  of  Once  a  Week;  and  this 
would  be  equivalent  to  at  least  one  hundred 
and  forty  leading  articles  in  the  usual  "leaded" 
type.  I  need  not  give  a  complete  list  of  titles 
of  the  year's  Once  a  Week  articles  ;  but  a  few 
may  be  cited  to  show  what  class  of  subjects  she 
selected  :  "  Our  Peasantry  in  Progress,"  "  Ire- 
land and  her  Queen,"  "The  Harvest,"  "The 
Domestic  Service  Question,"  "  What  Women 
are  Educated  for,"  "American  Soldiering," 

*Most  of  these  papers  are  signed  '•  From  the  Mountain." 


254  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

"Deaths  by  Fire,"  "The  Sheffield  Outrages," 
"Education  and  the  Racing  Season." 

Such  was  Harriet  Martineau's  work  for  the 
year  1861  ;  and  thus  could  she,  confined  to  her 
house,  comprehend  and  care  for  the  condition 
of  mankind. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  she  had  written  on 
Domestic  Servants  both  in  the  Daily  News  and 
Once  a  Week  ;  but  still  she  had  not  said  all  that 
she  wished  to  say  about  the  subject,  and  early 
in  the  next  year  she  wrote  a  long  article  on  it, 
which  appeared  in  the  Edinburgh  for  April, 
1862.  It  is  a  capital  article,  distinguished  alike 
by  common-sense,  and  by  wide-reaching  sym- 
pathy ;  womanly  in  the  best  sense  —  in  its 
domestic  knowledge,  and  its  feeling  for  women 
in  their  perplexities  and  troubles,  whether  as 
servants  or  mistresses,  — and  yet  philosophical 
in  its  calmness,  its  power  of  tracing  from 
causes  to  effects,  and  its  practical  wisdom  in 
forestalling  future  difficulties. 

In  this  year  she  began  to  write  historical 
stories,  "  Historiettes,"  as  she  called  them,  for 
Once  a  Week.  As  fictions,  they  are  not  equal 
to  her  best  productions  of  that  class  ;  but  their 
special  value  was  less  in  this  direction,  or  even 
in  the  detailed  historical  knowledge  that  they 
displayed,  than  in  the  insight  into  the  philosophy 
of  political  history  which  the  reader  gained. 


IN  RETREAT;  JOURNALISM,          255 

They  were  illustrated  by  Millais,  and  proved  so 
attractive  that  they  were  continued  during  the 
next  two  years.  One,  dealing  with  the  con- 
stitutional struggle  in  the  reign  of  Charles  I., 
and  called  "The  Hampdens,"  has  been  re-pub- 
lished so  recently  as  1880. 

A  large  portion  of  her  time  and  thought  was 
absorbed,  in  these  years,  by  the  American 
struggle  and  its  consequences.  Loving  the 
United  States  and  their  people  as  she  did,  the 
interest  and  anxiety  with  which  she  watched 
their  progress  were  extreme.  She  was  no 
coward  —  as  it  is,  no  doubt,  hardly  necessary  to 
remark  on  this  page  —  and  though  she  grieved 
deeply  for  the  sufferings  both  of  personal  friends 
and  of  the  whole  country,  yet  her  soul  rose  up 
in  noble  exultation  over  the  courage,  the  resolu- 
tion, and  the  high-mindedness  of  the  bulk  of  the 
American  nation.  Over  here,  she  threw  her- 
self with  warm  eagerness  into  the  effort  to 
support  those  Lancashire  workers  upon  whom 
fell  so  heavy  a  tax  of  deprivation  in  the  cotton 
famine.  The  patience,  the  quietness,  the  hero- 
ism with  which  our  North-Country  workers  bore 
all  that  they  had  to  suffer,  supported  as  they 
were  by  the  sympathy  of  the  mass  of  their 
fellow-countrymen,  and  by  their  own  intelligent 
convictions  that  they  were  aiding  a  good  cause 
by  remaining  peaceful  and  quiet  —  this  was 


256  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

just  the  sort  of  thing  to  arouse  all  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau's  loving  sympathies.  "Her  face  would 
all  light  up  and  the  tears  would  rush  to  her 
eyes  whenever  she  was  told  of  a  noble  deed," 
says  Miss  Arnold  ;  "  no  matter  how  humble  the 
doer,  or  how  small  the  matter  might  seem,  you 
could  see  the  delight  it  gave  her  to  know  that 
a  fire,  brave,  or  unselfish  act  had  been  done." 
Animated  by  such  respectful  joy  in  the  attitude 
of  the  Lancashire  workers,  she  threw  herself 
into  their  service ;  and  her  correspondence  on 
this  topic  during  1861,  when  she  used  all  her 
public  and  private  influence  on  their  behalf,  and 
employed  her  best  energies  in  aiding  and  ad- 
vising the  relief  committees,  would  fill  a  large 
volume. 

In  the  midst  of  her  labors  for  America,  she 
could  not  but  be  gratified  by  the  testimonies 
which  constantly  reached  her  from  that  country 
to  the  appreciation  of  the  work  which  she  had 
done  and  was  doing. 

The  History  of  the  Peace  was  reprinted  in 
Boston  in  the  very  midst  of  the  civil  war,  "  at 
the  instance  of  men  of  business  throughout  the 
country,  who  believe  it  will  do  great  good 
from  its  political  and  yet  more  economical  les- 
sons, which  are  so  much  wanted."  The  pub- 
lishers of  the  Atlantic  Monthly  appealed  to  her 
to  write  them  a  series  of  articles  on  "Military 


IN  RETREAT;  JOURNALISM.          2$? 

Hygiene  ; "  and,  over-pressed  as  she  was,  she 
could  not  refuse  a  request  which  enabled  her 
to  do  much  good  service  for  the  soldiers  of  the 
North,  for  whom  she  felt  so  deeply.  Nor  were 
more  private  tributes  to  the  value  of  her  efforts 
lacking.  A  set  of  the  Rebellion  Record,  pub- 
lished by  Putnam,  was  sent  to  her  with  the 
cover  stamped  under  the  title  with  these 
words  :  "  Presented  by  citizens  of  New  York  to 
Harriet  Martineau  ; "  and  innumerable  books 
came  with  testimonies  inscribed  by  the  writers, 
such  as  that  in  Henry  Wilson's  Slave  Power  in 
America,  which  was  as  follows  :  "  Mrs.  Harriet 
Martineau  ;  with  the  gratitude  of  the  author  for 
her  friendship  for  his  country,  and  her  devotion 
to  freedom."  * 

*  The  highest  honor  yet  done  to  her  memory  is  the  work  of 
our  sisters  and  brothers  across  the  Atlantic.  A  public  sub- 
scription has  raised  funds  for  a  statue  of  Harriet  Martineau, 
which  has  been  executed  by  Anne  Whitney,  in  white  marble. 
The  statue  represents  Mrs.  Martineau  seated,  with  her  hands 
folded  over  a  manuscript  on  her  knees.  The  head  is  raised, 
and  has  a  light  veil  thrown  over  the  back  of  it  and  falling 
down  upon  the  shoulders,  while  a  shawl  is  draped  partially  over 
the  figure.  The  eyes  are  looking  forth,  as  though  in  that 
thoughtful  questioning  of  the  future  to  which  she  often  gave 
herself  The  statue  was  unveiled  in  the  Old  South  Hall,  Bos- 
ton, December  26th,  1883,  in  the  presence  of  many  notable  per- 
sonages. Mrs.  Mary  Livermore  presided,  and  speeches  were 
made  by  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  Jun.,  and  Wendell  Phillips, 
in  the  case  of  the  last-named  it  was  his  final  speech,  for  he, 
too,  six  weeks  after,  was  numbered  amongst  those  who  are  at 


258  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  year  1862,  Harriet 
Martineau  wrote  a  paper  on  "  Our  Convict 
System,"  which  appeared  in  the  following 
January  number  of  the  Edinburgh.  It  will  be 
noted  that  she  never  wrote  on  the  politics  of 
the  day — the  action  of  the  Government  and 
Opposition  of  the  moment  —  in  this  Review; 
her  political  principles  were  too  democratic  for 
the  great  Whig  organ. 

In  Once  a  Week,  however,  her  articles  became 
more  decisively  political  year  by  year.  Some  of 
her  best  political  papers  are  in  that  magazine 
for  1863.  The  most  noteworthy  feature  in 
them  are  their  basis  of  principles  and  not  of 
party,  and  their  practical  wisdom.  When  I 
speak  of  her  devotion  to  principles,  in  politics, 
I  half  fear  that  I  may  be  misunderstood  —  for 
so  shockingly  does  Cant  spawn  its  loathsomeness 
over  every  holy  phrase,  that  such  expressions 
come  to  us  "defamed  'by  every  charlatan,"  and 
doubtful  in  their  use.  But  she  was  neither 
doctrinaire,  nor  blind,  nor  pig-headed,  nor  phari- 
saic,  nor  jealous,  nor  scheming  ;  but  wise,  brave, 
truthful,  upright,  and  independent.  Love  of 
justice  and  truthfulness  of  speech  were  as  much 
to  her  in  public  affairs  as  they  are  to  any  high- 
rest.  "  The  audience  sat  in  silence  for  a  moment  as  the  white 
vision  was  unveiled  ;  then  went  up  such  applause  as  stirred  the 
echoes  of  the  historic  interior  in  which  the  ceremony  took  place." 


IN  RETREAT;  JOURNALISM.          259 

minded  person  in  private.  Her  desire  in  her 
thoughts  and  utterances  on  politics  was  simply 
to  secure  "the  greatest  happiness  for  the  great- 
est number"  of  the  people;  and  the  spirit  in 
which  she  worked  was  correctly  appraised  by 
the  then  editor  of  the  Daily  News,  William 
Weir,  when  he  wrote  to  her  in  these  terms,  in 
1856:  — 

I  have  never  before  met  —  I  do  not  hope  again 
to  meet  —  one  so  earnest  (as  you)  to  promote 
progress,  so  practical  in  the  means  by  which  to 
arrive  at  it.  My  aim  in  life  is  to  be  able  to  say, 
when  it  is  closing,  "  I,  too,  have  done  somewhat, 
though  little,  to  benefit  my  kind;"  and  there 
are  so  few  who  do  not  regard  this  as  Quixotism 
or  hypocrisy,  that  I  shrink  even  from  confess- 
ing it. 

He  so  well  recognized  that  as  truly  her  aim 
also  that  he  did  not  fear  to  utter  to  her  his  high 
aspiration.  It  is  in  this  spirit  that  her  political 
articles  are  written,  and  the  result  of  the  con- 
stant reference  to  principles  is  that  her  essays 
are  almost  as  instructive  reading  now  as  they 
were  when  first  published ;  then,  their  interest 
and  their  importance  were  both  incalculable. 

Of  such  articles  Harriet  Martineau  wrote  in 
the  Daily  News,  from  first  to  last,  sixteen  hun- 
dred and  forty-two :  besides  the  great  number 
that  I  have  referred  to,  which  appeared  in  other 


260  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

journals.  I  wonder  how  many  of  the  men 
who  have  presumed  to  say  that  the  women  are 
"incapable  of  understanding  politics,"  or  of 
"sympathizing  in  great  causes,"  received  a  large 
part  of  their  political  education,  and  of  rousing 
stimulus  to  public-spirited  action,  from  those 
journalistic  writings  by  Harriet  Martineau? 

An  instructive  article  on  "The  Progress  of 
the  Negro  Race  "  was  prepared  for  the  Edin- 
burgh of  January,  1864.  Only  a  few  weeks 
after  the  appearance  of  this,  there  fell  upon  her 
the  greatest  blow  of  her  old  age.  Her  beloved 
niece  Maria,  who  had  for  so  long  filled  the 
place  of  a  daughter  to  her,  was  taken  ill  with 
typhoid  fever,  and  died  after  a  three  weeks'  ill- 
ness. Maria  Martineau's  active  disposition,  and 
her  intellectual  power  (which  was  far  above  the 
average)  had  made  her  an  ideal  companion  for 
her  aunt,  and  the  blow  to  her  was  a  terrible  one. 
Ill  and  suffering  as  she  was  before,  this  shock 
completed  the  wreck  of  Harriet  Martineau's 
health.  She  had  a  dreary  time  of  illness  im- 
mediately after  her  niece's  death  ;  and  although 
she  went  on  writing  for  some  time  longer,  ;t 
was  always  with  the  feeling  that  the  end  of  her 
long  life's  industry  was  near  at  hand. 

She  was  not  left  alone  ;  for  Maria's  youngest 
sister,  Jane,  presently  offered  voluntarily  to  fill, 
as  far  as  she  could,  the  vacant  place  at  "The 


IN  RETREAT;  JOURNALISM.          261 

Knoll."  The  family  from  which  these  sisters 
came  was  one  in  which  kindliness  and  gener- 
osity were  (and  are  to  this  day,  with  its 
younger  members  who  remain)  distinguishing 
features.  It  was  no  light  matter  for  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Robert  Martineau  to  part  with  a  second 
daughter  to  their  sister  ;  but,  as  it  was  Jane's 
own  wish  to  try  to  be  to  that  beloved  and  hon- 
ored relative  what  Maria  had  been,  the  parents 
would  not  refuse  their  permission.  Harriet 
wrote  of  this  to  Mr.  Reeve  with  her  heart  full ; 
telling  him  how  "humbly  grateful"  she  felt  for 
what  was  so  generously  offered  to  her,  and  with 
what  thankfulness  she  accepted  the  blessing. 
Even  in  such  circumstances,  she  could  note 
what  a  delight  it  was  to  find  that  Maria's  own 
spirit  of  devotedness  prevailed  amongst  them 
all  —  for  nothing  could  be  nobler  and  sweeter 
than  the  conduct  of  everyone. 

By  June  of  that  same  year,  1864,  Mrs.  Mar- 
tineau was  ready  to  undertake  another  article 
on  a  topic  which  pressed  upon  her  mind,  "  Co- 
operative Societies,"  which  was  published  in 
the  Edinburgh  for  October  following. 

She  went  on  writing  for  the  Daily  News, 
through  that  year  and  the  next,  though  the 
effort  came  to  be  constantly  more  and  more 
laborious.  Her  interest  in  public  affairs  did 
not  flag  ;  nor  is  there  the  least  sign  of  failure 


262  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

of  power  in  her  letters  ;  but  she  became  increas- 
ingly conscious  that  it  was  a  strain  upon  her  to 
write  under  the  responsibility  of  addressing  the 
public. 

Early  in  1865  she  wrote  some  articles  on 
"The  Scarcity  of  Nurses,"  "poked  up  to  do 
it,"  as  she  said,  by  Florence  Nightingale.  In 
the  April  of  the  same  year  was  prepared  an 
article  on  "  Female  Convicts,"  which  was  pub- 
lished in  the  Edinburgh  for  October.  In  send- 
ing this  she  intimated  to  the  editor  that  it 
would  be  her  last  contribution,  as  she  felt  the 
strain  of  such  writing  too  great  for  her  strength. 
After  all  she  did  prepare  one  more  article  for 
the  Edinburgh,  though  it  was  as  long  after- 
wards as  1868.  This  was  the  paper  on  "Salem 
Witchcraft,"  which  will  be  found  in  the  num- 
ber of  that  Review  for  July.  It  formed  Har- 
riet Martineau's  last  contribution  of  any  length 
to  literature ;  and  she  wrote  it  with  some  re- 
luctance, after  having  suggested  the  subject  to 
Mr.  Reeve,  and  he  having  replied  that  he  could 
find  no  one  suitable  to  undertake  it  but  herself. 

She  was  very  loath  to  cease  her  writing  for 
the  Daily  News,  and  continued  it  until  the 
spring  of  1866.  It  was  a  great  trial  when  at 
last  the  moment  came  that  she  felt  she  abso- 
lutely must  be  freed  from  the  obligation  and 
the  temptation  to  frequent  work.  But  the 


IN  RETREAT;  JOURNALISM.          263 

spring  was  always  her  worst  time  as  to  health  ; 
and  during  this  customary  vernal  exacerbation 
of  illness,  in  April,  1866,  she  found  herself 
obliged  at  last,  after  fourteen  years'  service,  to 
send  in  her  resignation  to  the  Daily  News. 

When  she  thus  terminated  her  connection 
with  the  paper  through  whose  columns  she  had 
spoken  so  long,  she  practically  concluded  her 
literary  life.  Neither  her  intellectual  powers, 
nor  her  interest  in  public  affairs,  were  percepti- 
bly diminished  ;  as  will  presently  be  seen,  these 
continued  to  the  end  of  her  life  all  but  una- 
bated. Her  regular  literary  exertions  were 
now,  however,  at  an  end ;  and  she  was  ill 
enough  by  this  time,  her  niece  tells  me,  to  feel 
only  relief  at  being  freed  from  the  constant 
pressure  of  the  duty  of  thought  and  speech. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE    LAST    YEARS. 

HARRIET  MARTINEAU  had  never  gone  the  right 
way  to  work  to  become  rich  by  literature.  She 
had  not  chosen  her  subjects  with  a  view  to  the 
mere  monetary  success  she  might  attain,  and, 
not  infrequently,  she  had  displayed  a  rare 
generosity  in  her  pecuniary  affairs.  In  April, 
1867,  she  was  plunged  into  perplexity  about  the 
means  of  living,  by  the  temporary  failure  of 
the  Brighton  Railway  to  pay  its  dividends. 
After  all  her  work,  she  had  but  little  to  lose. 
She  had  from  investments  in  the  preference 
stock  of  that  railway  ^230  per  annum,  and  she 
had  only  ^150  yearly  from  all  other  sources. 
Such  was  the  fortune  saved,  after  labors  such 
as  hers,  through  a  long  life  of  industry  and 
thrift.  There  was  a  beautiful  contest  between 
the  inmates  of  that  home,  when  the  trouble 
came,  as  to  which  of  them  should  begin  to 
make  the  necessary  sacrifices  involved  in  econo- 
mizing. Miss  Jane  Martineau  and  the  maid 
Caroline  were  each  ready  with  their  offers,  and 


THE  LAST  YEARS.  265 

the  invalid  mistress  of  the  house  was  with 
difficulty  induced  to  continue  her  wine  and 
dinner  ale,  while  she  declared,  with  a  brave 
assumption  of  carelessness,  that  she  should  be 
rather  glad  than  otherwise  to  be  rid  of  seeing 
the  Times  daily  and  getting  the  periodic  box  of 
books  from  "Mudie's."  It  is  touching  to  note 
how  she  tried  to  lightly  pass  off  this  sacrifice  of 
current  literature,  when  one  knows  that  reading 
was  the  chief  solace  of  her  lonely  and  suffering 
days.  Her  family  intervened,  however,  to 
prevent  any  such  deprivations,  and  by-and-by 
the  company  resumed  payment  of  its  dividends. 
In  1868,  she  received  a  generous  offer,  which 
touched  her  very  deeply.  Mr.  J.  R.  Robinson, 
of  the  Daily  News,  proposed  to  her  that  there 
should  be  a  reprint  of  the  several  biographical 
sketches  which  she  had  contributed  to  the 
paper  during  her  connection  with  it ;  and 
he  offered  to  take  all  the  trouble  and  respon- 
sibility of  putting  the  volume  through  the 
press,  while  leaving  to  her  the  whole  of  the 
profits.  She  had  not  even  supposed  that  the 
copyright  in  the  biographies  which  she  had 
written  for  the  paper  from  time  to  time,  upon 
the  occasions  of  the  deaths  of  eminent  persons, 
remained  her  property.  Mr.  Robinson  had  the 
satisfaction  of  assuring  her  that  the  proprietors 
held  her  at  liberty  to  reproduce  these  writings, 


266  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

and,  with  that  comrade's  generosity  which  is 
not  altogether  rare  among  journalists,  her  kind 
friend  devoted  himself  to  securing  her  a  good 
publisher,  and  editing  the  volume,  Biographical 
Sketches,  for  her  benefit.  These  vignettes  well 
deserved  re-production.  She  had  had  more  or 
less  personal  acquaintance  with  nearly  every 
one  of  the  forty-six  eminent  persons  of  whom 
she  treated;  and  the  portraits  which  she 
sketched  were  equally  vivid  and  impartial.  The 
work  was  received  by  the  public  with  an  enthu- 
siasm which  repaid  Mr.  Robinson  for  his  gener- 
ous efforts.  It  was  reprinted  in  America ;  and 
it  is  now  in  its  fourth  English  edition. 

The  last  occasion  upon  which  she  was  to  give 
her  powers  and  her  influence  to  a  difficult  but 
great  public  work  must  now  be  mentioned.  It 
was  the  final  effort  of  her  career.  Marked  as 
that  life  had  been  all  through  by  devotedness  to 
public  duty,  she  never  before  was  engaged  in  a 
task  so  painful  and  difficult,  or  one  which,  upon 
mere  personal  grounds,  she  might  more  strongly 
have  desired  to  evade.  But  at  near  seventy 
years  old,  and  so  enfeebled  that  she  had  thought 
her  work  quite  finished,  she  no  more  hesitated 
to  come  to  the  front  under  fire  when  it  became 
necessary,  l^han  she  had  done  in  those  active 
younger  days  when  combat  may  have  had  its 
own  delights. 


THE  LAST  YEARS.  267 

The  subject  was  an  Act  of  Parliament  passed 
in  1869,  having  reference  to  certain  police 
powers  over  women  in  various  large  towns. 
"  In  our  time,  or  in  any  other,"  wrote  Mrs. 
Martineau,  "  there  never  was  a  graver  question." 
It  was  clear  to  her  that  if  women  "  did  not  insist 
upon  the  restoration  of  the  most  sacred  liberties 
of  half  the  people  of  England,  men  alone  would 
never  do  it ; "  and  she  wrote  four  letters  on  the 
subject  to  the  Daily  News,  as  powerful,  as  sen- 
sible, as  free  from  cant  of  any  kind,  as  clear  in 
the  appreciation  of  facts,  and  as  definite  and  able 
in  the  presentation  of  them,  as  anything  she  had 
ever  written.  She  wrote,  also,  and  signed  an 
"Appeal  to  the  Women  of  England  "  upon  the 
subject,  where  her  name  headed  the  list  of 
signers,  whilst  that  of  Florence  Nightingale 
came  next.  Two  such  women,  venerated  not 
less  for  the  intellectual  capacity  and  practical 
wisdom  than  for  the  devoted  benevolence  that 
they  had  shown  in  their  long  lives,  were  well 
able  to  arouse  and  lead  the  moral  sense  of  the 
womanhood  of  England  in  this  crisis.  Other 
respected  names  were  soon  added  to  theirs,  but 
it  would  not  be  easy  to  over-estimate  the  value 
of  the  self-sacrificing,  brave  action,  at  the  most 
critical  moment,  of  these  two  great  and  honor- 
able women. 

Besides  writing   articles,   and   appeals,    and 


268  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

signing  documents  which  were  placarded  as 
election  posters  in  some  great  towns,  Mrs.  Mar- 
tineau  helped  that  cause  in  the  way  told  in  the 
following  letter  to  Mr.  Atkinson  : 

May  2ist,  1871. 

One  pleasant  thing  has  happened  lately.  I 
longed  for  money  for  a  public  obj  ect  [repeal  of 
the  acts  in  question],  and,  unable  to  do  better, 
worked  a  chair,  and  had  it  beautifully  made  up. 
It  was  produced  at  a  great  evening  party  in 
London,  and  seized  upon  and  vehemently  com- 
peted for,  and  it  has  actually  brought  fifty 
guineas  !  In  the  middle  of  the  night  it  occurs 
to  me  what  a  thing  it  is  to  give  fifty  guineas  — 
so  much  as  I  had  longed  for  money  to  give  that 
fund.  I  was  asked  for  a  letter  of  explanation 
and  statement  to  go  with  the  chair,  and,  of 
course,  did  it  by  that  post. 

Work  for  this  cause  formed  the  most  keen 
and  active  interest  of  her  latest  years.  In  this 
she  thought  and  labored  constantly.  She  gave 
her  name  and  support  to  other  objects,  but  only 
quietly.  Amongst  other  things  she  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Women's  Suffrage  Society  ;  and  she 
was  a  subscriber  to  the  movement  for  the  medi- 
cal education  of  women. 

In  all  public  affairs,  indeed,  her  interest 
remained  keen  and  unabated  to  the  very  last, 
as  the  letters  for  which  I  am  indebted  to  Mr. 
Atkinson,  and  which  I  am  to  quote,  will  abun- 


THE  LAST   YEARS. 

dantly  show.     These  letters  will  inc. 

r  >t",  too, 

something   of    the   quiet    course    of    ix      ow 

uneventful  daily  life.     Sick  and  weary  vsne 
was,  it  will  be  seen  that  literature  and  pdli\e 
the  public  welfare,  and   the  concerns   of   he 
household's  inmates,  still  occupied  her  thoughts- 
and  her  pen. 

LETTERS  TO  MR.  ATKINSON. 

August  24,  1870. 

...  I  am  as  careful  as  possible  to  prevent 
anyone  losing  sleep  on  my  account,  and  being 
disturbed  at  meals,  or  failing  in  air,  exercise  and 
pleasure.  If  these  regular  healthy  habits  of  my 
household  become  difficult,  we  are  to  have  a 
trained  nurse  at  once.  This  is  settled.  I  am 
disposed  to  think,  myself  that  the  last  stage 
will  be  short,  probably  the  end  sudden. 

The  tone  of  this  last  sentence  is  no  affecta- 
tion. "  She  used  to  talk  about  her  death  as  if 
it  meant  no  more  than  going  into  the  next 
room,"  said  one  who  knew  her  in  these  years. 

September  10,  1870. 

...  I  am  not  sure  whether  you  have  read  Dr. 
Bence  Jones's  Life  and  Letters  of  Faraday.  I 
have  been  thankful,  this  last  week,  for  the 
strong  interest  of  that  book,  which  puts  Conti- 
nental affairs  out  of  my  head  for  hours  together. 
The  first  half  volume  is  rather  tiresome  —  giv- 


1ARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

j          .our  times  as  much  as  necessary  of  the 
u  **  ,?vated  youth's  early  prosing  on  crude  mor- 
a]:fs,  etc.     It  is  quite  right  to  give  us  some  of 
tj.-,,  to  show  from  how  low  a  point  of  thought 
.id  style  he  rose  up  to  his  perfection  of  expres- 
sion as  a  lecturer  and  writer  ;  but  a  quarter  of 
the  early  stuff  would  have  been  enough  for  that. 
The  succeeding  part,  for  hundreds  of  pages,  is 
the  richest  treat  I  have  had  for  many  a  day.     I 
can  only  distantly  and  dimly  follow  the  scientific 
lectures  and  writings  ;  but  I  understand  enough 
of  sympathy ;  and  the  disclosures  of  the  moral 
nature  of  the  man  is  perfectly  exquisite.     I  have 
never  known,  and  have  scarcely  dreamed  of,  a 
spirit  and  temper  so  thoroughly  uniting  the  best 
attributes  of  the  sage  and  the  child. 

October  18,  1870. 

I  had  my  envelope  directed  yesterday,  but 
was  prevented  writing,  and  in  the  evening  came 
your  welcome  letter.  I  am  glad  to  know  when 
you  mean  to  leave  your  quarters  ;  and  every  line 
from  France  is  interesting. 

I  wonder  whether  you  remember  a  night  in 
London  when  dear  Mrs.  Reid  and  you  and  I 
were  returning  in  her  carriage  from  Exeter 
Hall  and  the  Messiah.  I  was  saying  that  that 
sacred  drama  reminded  me  of  Holy  Philas,  and 
the  apotheosis  of  Osiris,  and  how  the  one  was  as 
true 'as  the  other,  with  its  "Peace  on  earth,  and 
good-will  to  men,"  so  false  a  prophesy,  etc.,  etc. 
Whereupon  Mrs.  Reid  said,  plaintively  (of  the 
Messiah},  "  I  believe  it  all  at  the  time,"  but  she 
did  not  set  up  any  pretense  of  the  promises 


\ 


THE  LAST   YEARS. 

having  been  fulfilled.  It  does  not  se 
Christendom  had  got  on  very  much  si 
world  said,  "See  how  these  Christians  lov 
another  !"  I. seem  to  have  got  to  a  new 
of  mind  about  war,  or  I  may  perhaps  forget  t 
emotions  of  youth ;  but  I  seem  never  before  to1 
have  felt  the  horror,  disgust,  shajne  —  in  short, 
misery  — that  the  spectacle  of  this  war  creates 
now.  I  am  reading  less  and  less  in  the  news- 
papers ;  for  the  truth  is,  I  cannot  endure  it. 
There  is  no  good  in  any  Jiopeless  spectacle  ;  and 
for  France,  I  am,  like  most  people,  utterly  hope- 
less. ...  By  selling  themselves  for  twenty 
years  to  the  worst  and  meanest  man  in  Europe, 
the  people  of  France  have  incurred  destruction  ; 
and  though  most  of  us  knew  this  all  the  time, 
we  do  not  suffer  the  less  from  the  spectacle  now. 
...  I  suppose  the  French  will  have  no  alterna- 
tive but  peace  in  a  little  while  ;  but,  when  all 
that  is  settled,  internal  strife  and  domestic  ruin 
will  remain  ahead.  The  truth  is,  the  morale  of 
the  French  is  corrupted  to  the  core.  All  habit 
of  integrity  and  sincerity  is  apparently  lost ;  and 
when  a  people  prefers  deception  to  truth,  vain- 
glory to  honor,  passion  to  reason  —  all  is  over. 
I  will  leave  it,  for  it  is  a  terrible  subject.  I  must 
just  say  that  I  believe  and  know  that  there  are 
French  citizens — a  very  few  —  who  understand 
the  case,  but  they  are  as  wretched  as  they  neces- 
sarily must  be.  But  "the  gay,  licentious, 
proud,"  the  pleasure-loving,  self-seeking  aristoc- 
racy, and  the  brutally  ignorant  rural  population, 
must  entirely  paralyze  the  intelligent,  an  honest 
few  scattered  in  their  midst.  But  I  must  leave 
all  this. 


HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

'pv  only  news  we  have  is  of  the  royal  mar- 
rj  j  (Princess  Louise)  which  pleases  everybody. 
j,.s  a  really  great  event  — as  a  sign  politically, 
ad  as  a  fact  socially  and  morally.     After  the 
Queen's  marriage,  I  wrote  repeatedly  on  behalf 
of  repealing  the  Royal  Marriage  Act  then,  while 
there  could  be  no  invidious  appearance  in    it. 
The    present    chaotic    condition  of   Protestant 
princedoms  in  Germany  may  answer  the  pur- 
pose almost  as   well  as  a  period   of  abeyance. 
Any  way,  the  relaxation  seems  a  wise  and  happy 
one. 

My  items  of  news  are  _small  in  comparison, 
but  not  small  to  me  ;  'especially  that  a  happy 
idea  struck  me  lately,  of  trying  a  spring  mat- 
tress as  a  means  of  obtaining  sleep  of  some 
continuance.  I  have  ventured  upon  getting 
one ;  and,  after  four  nights,  there  is  no  doubt 
of  my  being  able  to  sleep  longer,  and  with  more 
loss  of  consciousness  than  for  a  very  long  time. 
Last  night  I  once  slept  three  hours  with  only 
one  break.  Otherwise,  I  go  on  much  the 
same.  There  is  one  objection  to  these  beds 
which  healthy  people  are  unaware  of  —  that  so 
much  more  strength  is  required  to  move  in 
bed,  from  want  of  piirchase.  This  is  a  trouble, 
but  the  advantages  far  outweigh  it. 

Dear  Jenny  comes  home  to-morrow  evening, 
all  the  better,  I  am  assured,  for  three  weeks  at 
the  sea,  in  breeze  and  sup,  and  all  manner  of 
beauty  of  land  and  sea  (at  Barmouth,  and  with 
a  merry  party  of  young  people).  And  here  is 
a  game  basket,  arrived  from  parts  unknown, 
with  a  fine  hare,  two  brace  of  partridges,  and  a 


THE  LAST  YEARS.  273 

pheasant.  A  savory  welcome  for  Jenny! 
Cousin  Mary  has  been  more  good  and  kind 
than  I  can  say.  She  stays  for  Jenny,  and 
leaves  us  on  Friday,  I  must  not  begin  upon 
Huxley,  Tyndall,  and  Evans,  whom  I  have 
been  reading.  Much  pleasure  to  you,  dear 
friend,  in  your  closing  weeks. 

Yours  ever, 

H.  MARTINEAU. 

The  sleepless  nights  repeatedly  mentioned 
in  these  letters  were  a  source  of  great  suffering 
to  her  in  these  latest  years ;  under  medical 
advice  she  tried  smoking  as  a  means  of  pro- 
curing better  res~t,  with  some  success.  She 
smoked  usually  through  the  chiboque  which 
she  had  brought  home  with  her  from  the  East, 
and  which  she  had  there  learned  to  use,  as  she 
relates  with  her  customary  simplicity  and  direct- 
ness in  the  appendix  to  Eastern  Life  :  "I  found 
it  good  for  my  health,"  she  says  there,  "and  I 
saw  no  more  reason  why  I  should  not  take  it 
than  why  English  ladies  should  not  take  their 
glass  of  sherry  at  home  —  an  indulgence  which 
I  do  not  need.  I  continued  the  use  of  my 
chiboque  for  some  weeks  after  my  return,  and 
then  only  left  it  off  because  of  the  inconven- 
ience." When  health  and  comfort  were  to  be 
promoted  by  it,  she  resumed  it.  Her  nights 
were,  nevertheless,  very  broken,  and  frequent 
allusions  occur  in  her  letters  to  the  suffering  of 


274  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

sleeplessness,  with   its   concomitant  of  drowsi- 
ness in  the  day-time. 

The  next  letter  is  on  trivial  topics,  truly; 
but  is  none  the  less  valuable  for  the  uncon- 
scious record  which  it  affords  of  her  domestic 
character.  The  anxiety  for  her  household  com- 
panion's enjoyment,  the  delight  in  the  kindness 
that  the  young  folk  had  shown  to  each  other 
and  to  the  poor  Christmas  guests,  the  pleasure 
in  the  happiness  of  other  people,  are  all  char- 
acteristic features  which  are  of  no  trivial  con- 
sequence. 

AMBLESIDE,  Jan.  2,  '71. 

I  am  so  sorry  for  the  way  you  are  passing 
from  the  old  year  to  the  new  that  I  cannot  help 
saying  so.  I  ought  to  be  anything  but  sorry, 
considering  what  good  you  are  doing — essen- 
tial, indispensable  good;  but  you  must  be  so 
longing  for  your  own  quiet,  warm  home,  and 
the  friends  around  it,  that  I  heartily  wish  you 
were  there.  .  .  .  As  for  me,  my  business  is  to 
promote,  as  far  as  possible,  the  cheerfulness  of 
my  household.  There  really  has  been  much 
fun, —  and  yet  more  sober  enjoyment,  through- 
out this  particular  Christmas.  In  my  secret 
mind  I  am  nervously  anxious  about  Jenny  to 
whom  cold  is  a  sort  of  poison ;  but,  when  she 
had  once  observed  that  there  was  much  less 
cold  here  than  at  home,  or  anywhere  else  that 
she  could  be,  I  determined  to  say  no  more,  and 
to  make  the  best  of  it.  She  said  it  for  my 


THE  LAST  YEARS.  2/5 

sake,  I  know  (the  only  reason  for  her  ever 
speaking  of  herself),  and  I  frankly  received  it 
as  a  comfortable  saying.  She  is  getting  on 
better  than  any  of  us  expected,  and  she  has 
been  thoroughly  happy  in  exercising  our  hospi- 
talities. .  .  .  Jenny's  brother  Frank  came  for 
three  days  at  Christmas ;  and  Harriet  made 
herself  housekeeper  and  secretary,  and  made 
Jenny  the  guest,  to  set  her  wholly  at  liberty 
for  her  brother.  It  was  quite  a  pretty  sight  — 
they  were  all  so  happy !  There  was  a  kitchen 
party  on  Christmas  Day;  by  far  the  best  we 
ever  had ;  for  Frank  did  the  thing  thoroughly 
—  read  a  comic  tale,  taught  the  folk  games, 
played  off  the  snapdragons,  and  finally  pro- 
duced boxes  of  new  and  strange  crackers, 
which  spat  forth  the  most  extraordinary  pres- 
ents !  All  the  guests  and  the  servants  were  in 
raptures  with  him.  The  oldest  widow  but  one 
vowed  that  "  she  did  not  know  when  she  had 
seen  such  a  gentleman" — which  I  think  very 
probable.  They  came  to  dinner  at  noon,  and 
stayed  till  past  10  P.  M.  Think  of  spending 
those  ten  hours  entirely  in  the  two  kitchens, 
and  having  four  meals  in  the  time  !  My  nieces, 
and  nephews  were  tired !  So  was  I,  though  I 
had  only  the  consciousness  of  the  occasion.  .  . 
All  this  is  so  good  for  Jenny !  and  she  will  like 
the  quiet  and  leisure  that  will  follow.  .  .  . 

I  am  more  alive  and  far  less  suffering  than  in 
the  great  heats  of  autumn.  Your  slips  and  cut- 
tings are  very  interesting,  and  I  am  very  thank- 
ful for  them.  More  of  them  when  (or  if)  my 


276  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

head  is  worth  more.     Of  course  we  shall  hear 
when  you  get  home.     May  it  be  soon  ! 
Yours  ever,  dear  friend, 

H.  MARTINEAU. 

AMBLESIDE,  March  6,  '71. 
We  are  in  a  queer  state  just  now.  Gladstone 
turns  out  exactly  as  I  expected.  I  once  told 
some,  who  are  his  colleagues  now,  that  he  would 
do  some  very  fine  deeds  —  give  us  some  sepa- 
rate measures  of  very  great  value,  and  would  do 
it  in  an  admirable  manner  ;  but  that  he  would 
show  himself  incapable  of  governing  the  coun- 
try. For  two  years  he  did  the  first  thing;  and 
now,  this  third  year,  he  is  showing  the  expected 
incapacity.  Were  there  ever  such  means  thrown 
away  as  we  see  this  session  ?  Probably  you  are 
out  of  the  way  of  hearing  the  whole  truth  of  the 
situation,  and  I  cannot  go  into  it  here.  Suffice 
it,  that  Gladstone  totters  (and  three  or  four 
more),  and  that  several  departments  are  in  such 
a  mess  and  muddle  that  one  hardly  sees  how 
they  are  to  be  brought  straight  again;  and  all 
this  without  the  least  occasion  !  One  matter, 
in  which  I  feel  deep  interest,  and  on  which  I 
have  acted,  is  prospering,  and  we  have  the  Gov- 
ernment at  our  disposal ;  so  that  we  hope  they 
will  remain  in  office  till  we  have  secured  what 
we  want ;  but  the  more  we  have  to  do  with  Min- 
isters, the  weaker  we  find  them.  And  Gladstone 
is  not  only  weak  as  a  reasoner  (with  all  his  hair- 
splitting), but  ignorant  in  matters  of  political 
principle. 


THE  LAST  YEARS.  277 

The  next  letter  is  very  characteristic  and  per- 
fectly true  to  her  state  of  mind  with  regard  to 
flatterers  : 

May  21,  '71. 

And  now  you  will  want  to  know  how  Miss 

and  we  fared  this  day  week.  We  (she  and  I) 
were  together  only  three-quarters  of  an  hour ; 
and  for  part  of  that  time  I  was  too  much 
exhausted  to  benefit  much.  My  impression  is 
that  she  is  not  exactly  the  person  for  the  invalid 
room.  But  I  may  be  utterly  wrong  in  this.  I 
might  be  misled  by  the  fatiguing  sort  of  annoy- 
ance of  overpraise — of  worship  in  fact.  I  don't 
want  to  be  ungracious  about  what  my  books 
were  to  her  in  her  childhood  and  youth ;  I  am 
quite  ready  to  believe  her  sincere  in  what  she 
said.  But  not  the  less  is  it  bad  taste.  It  must 
be  bad  taste  to  expatiate  on  that  one  topic  which 
it  is  most  certain  that  the  hearer  cannot  sympa- 
thize in.  Also,  I  have  much  doubt  of  her  being 
accurate  in  her  talk.  There  is  a  random  air 
about  her  statements,  and  she  said  two  or  three 
things  that  certainly  were  mistakes,  more  or 
less.  These  things,  and  a  general  smoothness 
in  her  talk,  while  she  was  harsh  about  some  of 

the were  what  I  did  not  quite  like.    As  for 

the  rest,  she  was  as  kind  as  possible ;  and  not 
only  kind  to  me,  but  evidently  with  a  turn  that 
way,  and  a  habit  of  it  in  regard  to  children  and 
friends.  .  .  . 

June  n,  '71. 

....  Of  all  odd  things,  Dean  Stanley  and 
Lady  Augusta  have  been,  by  way  of  a  trip,  to 


278  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

Paris,  from  last  Monday  to  Saturday.  How  can 
they !  One  would  think  nothing  could  take 
one  there  but  some  strong  call  of  duty.  The 
least  that  one  must  read  and  hear  is  enough  to 
make  one's  heart  ache,  and  to  spoil  one's  sleep, 
and  to  disfigure  life  till  one  does  not  wish  to 
look  at  it  any  more.  I  do  long  to  have  done 
with  it.  I  believe  it  is  the  first  occasion  in  my 
life  of  my  having  felt  hopeless  of  any  destiny, 
individual  or  national.  .  .  .  How  badly  our 
public  affairs  are  going  !  Gladstone  &  Co,  are 
turning  out  exactly  as  many  of  us  foresaw.  The 
thing  nearest  my  heart  (repeal  of  the  acts 
above  alluded  to),  and  more  important  than  all 
other  public  questions,  will  do  well.  It  is,  I 
believe,  secure,  in  virtue  of  an  amount  of  effort 
and  devotedness  never  surpassed.  You  know 
what  I  mean.  I  rest  upon  that  achievement  — 
a  vital  aim  with  me  and  others  for  many  years 
—  with  satisfaction  and  entire  hopefulness,  but 
in  all  other  directions  the  prospect  is  simply 
dreary.  In  that  one  case,  we,  who  shall  have 
achieved  the  object,  have  saved  Ministers  from 
themselves,  and  from  evil  councillors.  Wher- 
ever they  have,  this  year,  trusted  their  own 
wisdom  and  resources,  they  have  failed,  or  see 
that  they  must  fail.  They  would  have  been  out 
since  early  in  April,  but  for  want  of  a  leader  on 
the  Conservative  side  ;  and  they  still  make  their 
party  dwindle  till  there  will  be  no  heart  or 
energy  left  in  the  Liberal  ranks  —  lately  so 
strong  and  ardent !  They  may  be  individually 
clever ;  but  they  cannot  govern  the  country. 
This  is  eminently  the  case  with  Gladstone  ;  and 


THE  LAST   YEARS.  279 

it  may  serve  as  the  description  of  the  group.  I 
shall  not  dare  to  ask  the  Arnolds  about  such 
matters  —  so  thoroughly  did  they  assume,  when 
they  went  away,  that  all  must  be  right  with 
"William"  and  Co.  in  the  Cabinet. 

Nov.  5,  '71. 

.  .  .  Mrs.  Grote  seems  to  like  to  open  her  feel- 
ings to  me,  as  a  very  old  friend  of  hers  and  her 
husband's.  Did  I  tell  you  that  she  sent  me  — 
to  put  me  in  possession  of  her  state  —  her 
private  diary,  from  the  first  day  of  her  alarm 
about  her  husband's  health  to  the  day  she  sent 
it?  It  was  more  interesting  than  I  can  say; 
but  it  brought  after  it  something  more  striking 
still.  Some  half-century  ago,  Jeremy  Bentham 
threw  upon  paper  some  thoughts  on  the  opera- 
tion of  natural  religion  on  human  welfare,  or 
ill-fare.  His  MSS.  were  left  to  Mrs.  Grote 
(or  portions  of  them),  and  those  papers  were 
issued  by  the  Grotes  under  the  title,  Analysis  of 
the  Influence  of  Natural  Religion,  etc.  etc.,  by 
Philip  Beauchamp."  It  is  a  tract  of  142  pp.  It 
is  the  boldest  conceivable  effort  at  fair  play  ; 
and  in  this  particular  effect,  it  is  most  strid- 
ing. At  the  outset,  all  attempts  to  divide  the 
"abuses  "  of  religion  from  other  modes  of  opera- 
tion are  repudiated  at  once  ;  and  the  claim  is  so 
evidently  sound  that  the  effect  of  the  exposure  is 
singular.  Well !  of  course  the  tendency  of  the 
exposition  is  to  show  that  the  absolute  darkness 
of  the  Unseen  Life  supposed  must  produce  a 
demoralizing  effect,  and  destroy  ease  of  mind. 
There  is  something  almost  appalling  in  the  un- 


280  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

flinching  representation  of  the  mischief  of  the 
spirit  of  fear,  of  its  torment,  and  of  its  damaging 
effects  in  creating  a  habit  of  adulation,  in  per- 
verting the  direction  of  our  desires,  in  corrupt- 
ing our  estimate  of  good  and  evil,  in  leaving  us, 
in  short,  no  chance  of  living  a  healthy  and 
natural  life,  but  rather,  making  cowards,  liars, 
and  selfish  rascals  of  us  all.  I  can't  go  on,  being 
tired ;  and  you  will  be  thinking,  as  you  read, 
that  this  is  only  the  old  story  —  of  the  mischiefs 
and  miseries  of  superstition.  But  there  is  some- 
thing impressive  in  the  cheerful  simplicity  with 
which  Bentham  tells  us  his  opinion  of  the  sort 
of  person  recommended  to  us  for  a  master 
under  the  name  of  God,  and  with  which  he 
warns  us  all  of  the  impossibility  of  our  being 
good  or  happy  under  such  a  Supreme  Being. 
In  looking  at  the  table  of  contents,  and  seeing 
the  catalogue  he  gives  of  evil  effects  of  belief  in 
the  barest  scheme  of  Natural  Religion,  one 
becomes  aware,  as  if  for  the  first  time,  of  the 
atmosphere  of  falsehood  against  which  we  ought 
to  have  recoiled  all  our  lives  since  becoming 
capable  of  thought. 

Dec.  30,  '71. 

...  I  go  off  rapidly  as  a  correspondent ; 
there  is  no  use  blinking  the  fact.  I  am  so  slow 
and  write  so  badly!  and  leave  off  too  tired. 
Oddly  enough,  this  very  week  one  of  the  Daily 
News  authorities  has  been  uttering  a  groaning 
longing  for  my  pen  in  the  service  of  that  paper, 
as  of  old.  The  occasion  is  a  short  letter  of  mine 
in  last  Thursday's  paper,  which  you  may  have 


THE  LAST  YEARS.  28 1 

seen.*  If  so,  you  will  see  that  I  had  no  choice. 
W.  E.  Forster  was  at  Fox  How;  and  I  got 
Jenny  to  carry  the  volume  of  Brougham  (vol. 
iii.  p.  302)  to  consult  Forster  and  Arnolds 
about  what  I  should  do,  W.  E.  Forster  being 
in  the  same  line  of  business  with  my  father,  and 
a  public  man — man  of  the  world.  He  was 
clear:  it  was  impossible  to  leave  my  father 
under  a  false  imputation  of  having  failed.  And 
when  my  letter  appeared,  he  was  delighted  with 
it;  so  are  those  of  my  family  that  I  have  heard 
from ;  and,  above  all,  Daily  News  editors. 
They  hope  and  believe  it  will  excite  due  distrust 
of  Brougham's  representations,  and  encourage 
others  to  expose  his  falsehoods.  His  suppress- 
ions are  as  wonderful  as  his  disclosures;  e.g. 
the  very  important  crisis  in  his  career,  known 
by  the  name  of  the  "Grey  Banquet"  at  Edin- 
burgh, he  cuts  completely  out  of  the  history 
of  the  time  —  perverting  Lord  Durham's  story 
as  well  as  his  own.  I  can  see  how  the  false 
story  of  me  and  mine  got  made  ;  but  enough  of 
that  —  especially  if  you  have  not  seen  the  letter 
in  the  Daily  News.  Forster  is  kindly  and  quiet, 
but  he  is  altered.  He  is  now  —  the  Courtier! 
—  and  odd  sort  of  one,  with  much  Quaker 
innocence  and  prudence  in  it ;  but  of  a  sort 
which  leaves  me  no  hope  of  his  handling  of  his 
Education  measure.  There  will  be  such  a  fight! 
and  the  Nonconformists  are  right,  and  know 
that  they  are.  You  will  probably  see  that 
achieved  —  a  real  National  Education  estab- 
lished, secular  and  compulsory. 

*  Refuting  a    statement  made  in  Lord  Brougham's  Autobi- 
ography that  her  father  had  failed  in  business. 


282  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

The  Ambleside  surgeon,  who  had  undertaken, 
in  acccordance  with  Harriet  Martineau's  will, 
to  prepare  and  transmit  her  skull  and  brain  to 
Mr.  Atkinson,  died  in  the  year  1872.  The  fol- 
lowing letter  shows  that  the  progress  of  time 
had  in  no  way  diminished  her  willingness  to 
leave  her  head  for  scientific  investigation : 

AMBLESIDE,  April  23,  '72. 
(Shakespere's    birthday    and    Wordsworth's 

death -day.) 
DEAR  FRIEND, 

I  am  not  writing  about  poets  to-day,  nor 
about  any  "  play  "  topic,  nor  anything  gay,  or 
pretty,  or  amusing.  I  write  on  business  only. 

When  you  heard  of  Mr.  Shepherd's  death,  you 
must,  I  should  think,  have  considered  what  was 
to  be  done  in  regard  to  fulfilling  the  provision 
of  my  will  about  skull  and  brain.  It  is  to  inform 
you  of  this  that  I  write. 

Mr.  Shepherd's  assistant  and  successor  is  Mr. 
William  Moore  King,  a  young  man  who  is  con- 
sidered very  clever,  and  is  certainly  very  kind, 
gentlemanly,  simple  in  mind  and  manners,  and 
married  to  a  charming  girl  (grand-daughter  of 
Martin,  the  artist).  Jenny  has  known  them  for 
two  years,  having  called  on  their  arrival.  I  had 
seen  him  twice  before  this  last  week.  I  wrote 
to  him  the  other  day,  to  ask  him  to  give  me  half 
an  hour  for  confidential  conversation ;  and  he 
came  when  I  was  quite  alone  for  the  morning. 

I  told  him  the  whole  matter  of  the  provision 
in  my  will,  and  of  Mr.  Shepherd's  engagement, 


THE  LAST   YEARS.  283 

in  case  of  his  surviving  me  in  sufficient  vigor  to 
keep  his  word.  Mr.  King  listened  anxiously, 
made  himself  master  of  the  arrangement,  and 
distinctly  engaged  to  do  what  we  ask,  saying 
that  it-  was  so  completely  clear  between  us  that 
we  need  never  speak  of  it  again. 

I  may  add  that  Mr.  King  has  shown  me  the 
letters  in  which  Mrs.  Martineau  made  the 
necessary  arrangements  with  him  for  his  task. 
Mr.  Atkinson  was,  however,  now  residing  out 
of  England,  and  not  in  a  position  to  usefully 
accept  the  bequest,  so  he  intimated  his  desire 
to  be  freed  from  his  promise  to  undertake  the 
examination  of  his  friend's  brain.  A  codicil 
was  added  to  Harriet  Martineau's  will,  therefore, 
revoking  the  provision  about  this  matter. 

The  next  quotation  shows  how  little  the  long 
prospect  of  death  had  changed  her  expectations 
and  desires  about  things  supernatural  :  — 

November  19,  '72. 

I  mean  to  try  to  do  justice  to  what  I  think 
and  believe,  by  avowing  the  satisfaction  I  truly 
feel  with  my  release  from  selfish  superstition  and 
trumpery  self-regards,  and  with  the  calm  con- 
clusions of  my  reason  about  what  to  desire  and 
expect  in  the  position  in  which  each  one  of  us 
mysterious  human  beings  finds  him  or  herself. 
It  is  all  we  have  to  do  now  (such  as  you  and  I), 
to  be  satisfied  with  the  conditions  of  the  life  we 
have  left  behind  us,  and  fearless  of  the  death 


284  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

which  lies  before  us.  Nobody  will  ever  find  me 
craving  the  "  glory  and  bliss "  which  the 
preachers  set  before  us,  and  pray  that  we  may 
obtain.  Some  of  them  are  very  good  and  kind, 
I  know  ;  but  they  will  never  create  any  longing 
of  the  sort  in  me.  But  why  should  I  scribble 
on  in  this  way  to  you  ?  Perhaps  because  our 
new  Evangelical  curate  has  written  me  almost 
the  worst  and  silliest  letter  of  this  sort  that  I 
ever  saw.  Enough  of  him  then  !  But  I  have 
left  myself  no  room  or  strength  for  other  mat- 
ters this  time.  I  wanted  to  tell  you  about  the 
effect  —  according  to  my  experience  —  of  a 
second  reading  of  Adam  Bede,  Miss  Evans'  first 
great  novel.  A  singular  mind  is  hers,  I  should 
think,  and  truly  wonderful  in  power  and  scope. 
Her  intellectual  power  and  grace  attract  and  win 
people  of  very  high  intellectual  quality. 

Miss  Jane  Martineau  was  at  this  time  in  very 
delicate  health,  and,  after  long  fluctuations  of 
hope  and  fear,  was  compelled  to  leave  her  aunt 
for  the  winter  and  go  to  a  warmer  climate. 
Mrs.  Martineau's  letters  show  how  cruel  was 
her  anxiety  for  "  my  precious  Jenny,"  and  are 
filled  with  expressions  of  her  feelings  about  the 
state  of  her  beloved  young  companion.  All 
this  is,  of  course,  too  personal  for  quotation,  but 
a  perusal  of  it  amply  confirms  the  accounts  of 
her  domestic  affection,  and  the  warmth  and 
sensitiveness  of  her  heart. 

The  loss  of  her  niece  from  her  side  ultimately 


THE  LAST  YEARS.  285 

compelled  the  engagement  of  a  companion,  Miss 
Goodwin,  a  young  lady  who  became  as  much 
attached  to  Harriet  Martineau  as  did  all  others 
who  came  in  close  relationship  with  her  in  those 
years. 

May  loth,  '73. 

.  .  .  The  great  event  to  me  and  my  house- 
hold is,  that  Caroline  —  my  dear  maid  and  nurse 
—  has  seen  Jenny  ...  It  was  such  a  pouring 
out  on  both  sides.  It  would  have  almost  broken 
Jenny's  heart  not  to  have  seen  this  very  dear 
friend  of  ours,  when  only  half  an  hour  off.  All 
her  longing  is  to  be  by  my  side  again.  I  never 
discourage  this  ;  but  I  don't  believe  it  can  come 
to  pass.  .  .  .  Everybody  is  kind  and  helpful ; 
and  our  admiration  of  Miss  Goodwin  ever  in- 
creases. 

AMBLESIDE,  Sept.  7th,  '73. 
DEAR  FRIEND, 

I  am  not  ungrateful  nor  insensible  about 
your  treating  me  with  letters,  whether  I  reply 
or  not.  You  may  be  sure  I  would  write  if  I 
could.  But  you  know  I  cannot,  and  why.  At 
times  I  really  indulge  in  the  hope  and  belief 
that  the  end  is  drawing  near,  and  then  again, 
if  I  compare  the  present  day  with  a  year  ago, 
it  seems  as  if  there  was  no  very  great  change. 
I  still  do  not  make  mistakes — or  only  in  trifling 
slips  of  memory  common  enough  at  seventy. 
Still  I  have  no  haunting  ideas,  no  delusions,  no 
fears, —  except  that  vague  sort  of  misgiving 
that  occurs  when  it  becomes  a  fatigue  to  talk, 
and  to  move  about,  and  to  plan  the  duties  of 


286  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

the  day.  Yet  aware  as  I  am  of  the  character 
of  the  change  in  me,  and  confident  as  I  still 
am  of  not  making  a  fool  of  myself  till  I  alter 
further,  I  now  seldom  or  never  (almost  never) 
feel  quite  myself.  I  have  told  you  this  often 
lately ;  but  I  feel  as  if  it  would  not  be  quite 
honest  to  omit  saying  it  while  feeling  it  to  be 
the  most  prominent  experience  of  my  life  at 
this  time.  It  is  not  always  easy  to  draw  the 
line  as  to  what  one  should  tell  in  such  a  case. 
On  the  one  hand,  I  desire  to  avoid  all  appear- 
ance of  weak  and  tiresome  complaining  of  what 
cannot  be  helped ;  and  on  the  other,  I  do  wish 
not  to  appear  unaware  of  my  failures.  I  am 
sure  you  understand  this,  and  can  sympathize 
in  the  anxiety  about  keeping  the  balance  hon- 
est. There  have  been  heart-attacks  now  and 
then  lately,  which  have  caused  digitalis  and 
belladonna  to  be  prescribed  for  me  ;  and  this 
creates  a  hope  that  the  general  bodily  condition 
is  declining  in  good  proportion  to  the  brain 
weakening.  .  .  .  Miss and  her  naval  part- 
ner remind  me  of  the  pair  in  the  novel  that  I 
have  read  eleven  times  —  Miss  Austen's  Per- 
suasion—  unequalled  in  interest,  charm  and 
truth  (to  my  mind).  There  is  a  hint  there  of 
the  drawback  of  separation;  but  yet, —  who 
would  have  desired  anything  for  Anne  Elliot 
and  her  Captain  Wentworth  but  that  they 
should  marry  ?  I  am  now  in  the  middle  of  Miss 
Thackeray's  Old  Kensington — reading  it  with 
much  keen  pleasure,  and  some  satisfaction  and 
surprise.  There  are  exquisite  touches  in  it  ; 
and  there  is  a  further  disclosure  of  power,  of 


THE  LAST  YEARS.  287 

genuine,  substantial,  vital  power;  but  her  man- 
nerism grows  on  her  deplorably,  it  seems  to 
me.  The  amount  and  the  mode  of  analysis  of 
minds  and  characters  are  too  far  dispropor- 
tioned  to  the  other  elements  to  be  accepted 
without  regret,  and,  perhaps,  some  fear  for  the 
future.  But  I  have  not  read  half  the  book  yet ; 
and  I  hope  I  may  have  to  recall  all  fault-finding, 
and  to  dwell  only  on  the  singular  value  and 
beauty  of  the  picture-gallery  she  has  given  us. 

An  incident  of  this  year's  (1873)  story,  which 
must  not  be  overlooked,  was  an  offer  of  a  pen- 
sion made  to  Harriet  Martineau  by  Mr.  Glad- 
stone. She  had  written  sadly  of  her  own 
sufferings  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Grote,  which 
referred  also  to  Mr.  Crete's  life,  and  that  lady 
had  published  the  letter.  Mr.  Gladstone,  in 
delicate  and  friendly  terms,  intimated  to  Mrs. 
Martineau  that  if  pecuniary  anxiety  in  any  way 
added  to  her  troubles,  he  would  recommend  the 
Queen  to  give  her  one  of  the  literary  pensions 
of  the  Civil  List.  She  declined  it  with  real 
gratitude,  partly  upon  the  same  grounds  which 
had  before  led  her  to  refuse  a  similar  offer,  but 
with  the  additional  reason  now  that  she  would 
not  expose  the  Queen  and  the  Premier  to  insult 
for  showing  friendliness  to  "an  infidel." 

The  next  letter  is  mainly  domestic,  but  I  am 
sure  that  those  spoken  of  by  name  in  it  will 
not  object  to  publication  of  references  in  order 


288  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

to  show  Harriet  Martineau  in  her  amiable,  con- 
siderate household  character  :  — 

DEAR  FRIEND,  December  6,  1873. 

I  will  not  trouble  and  pain  you  by  a  long 
story  about  the  cares  and  anxieties  which 
make  the  last  stage  of  my  long  life  hard  to 
manage  and  to  bear.  If  I  could  be  quite  sure 
of  the  end  being  as  near  as  one  would  suppose, 
I  could  bear  my  own  share  quietly  enough  ;  but 
it  is  a  different  thing  watching  a  younger  life 
going  out  prematurely.  My  beloved  Jenny 
will  die,  after  all,  we  think,  bravely  as  she  has 
borne  up  for  two  years.  The  terrible  East 
winds  again  got  hold  of  her  before  she  went  (so 
early  as  October  !)  to  her  winter  quarters  ;  and 
there  are  sudden  and  grave  symptoms  of 
dropsy.  The  old  dread  of  the  post  has  returned 
upon  me  ;  and  I  am  amazed  to  find  how  I  can 
still  suffer  from  fear.  I  am  quite  unfit  to  live 
alone  —  even  for  a  week  ;  yet  I  mean  to  ven- 
ture it,  if  necessary.  Miss  Goodwin  shall  go 
(to  Leeds)  for  Christmas  Day,  on  which  the 
family  have  always  hitherto  assembled.  I  will 
not  prevent  their  doing  so  now.  My  niece 
Harriet  (Higginson)  was  to  come,  as  usual,  for 
a  month's  holiday  at  Christmas  ;  but  her  mother 
has  lamed  herself  by  a  fall,  and  it  must  be 
doubtful  whether  she  can  be  left.  Parents  pro- 
test the  dear  girl  shall  come ,  but  she  and  I 
wait  to  see.  There  is  nobody  else  ;  for  there 
is  illness  in  all  families,  or  anxiety  about  illness 
elsewhere.  "  Well !  we  shall  be  on  the  other 
side  of  it  somehow,"  as  people  say,  and  it  won't 


THE  LAST   YEARS.  289 

matter  much  then.  My  young  cook  is  wanted 
on  Christmas  Day  to  be  a  bridesmaid,  at  Not- 
tingham. So  I  have  a  real  reason  for  giving 
up  the  great  Christmas  party  I  have  given  (in 
the  kitchen)  every  year  till  now.  It  will  be 
costly  giving  the  people  handsome  dinners  in 
their  own  homes  ;  but  the  house  will  be  quiet, 
and  to  me  the  day  will  be  like  any  other  day. 
It  is  not  now  a  time  for  much  mirth  ;  the 
Arnolds  meeting  at  their  mother's  grave,  my 
Jenny  absent,  from  perilous  illness,  my  brain 
failing,  so  that  I  can  do  nothing  for  anybody 
but  by  money  (and  not  very  much  in  that  way). 
We  are  all  disposed  to  keep  quiet  —  wishing 
the  outside  world  a  "Merry  Christmas." 

April  1 5th,  1874. 

I  am  reading  again  that  marvellous  Middle- 
march,  finding  I  did  not  half  value  it  before.  It 
is  not  a  book  to  issue  as  a  serial.  Yet,  read  en 
suite,  I  find  it  almost  more  (greater)  than  I  can 
bear.  The  Casaubons  set  me  dreaming  all 
night.  Do  you  ever  hear  any-thmg  of  Lewes 
and  Miss  Evans  ? 

During  the  whole  of  the  time  over  which  these 
letters  extend  Mrs.  Martineau  was  subject  to 
fainting  fits,  in  any  one  of  which  her  life  might 
have  ended.  It  was  thus  necessary  for  her  to 
have  her  maid  sleeping  in  her  bed-room.  Caro- 
line, the  "dear  friend  and  servant  "  for  twenty- 
one  years,  died  early  in  1875.  Her  place  was 
filled  by  the  younger  maid,  Mary  Anne,  whom 

10 


290  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

Caroline  had  trained.  The  maid  has  told  me  of 
her  mistress's  kindness  and  readiness  to  be 
amused  ;  of  the  gentleness  of  her  manner,  and 
the  gratitude  which  she  seemed  to  feel  for  all 
loving  tendance.  The  next  letter  gives  a  glimpse 
of  the  daily  life  from  the  mistress'  pen  :  — 

Dec.  8,  '75. 

East  winds  have  been  abundantly  bitter ;  but 
this  house  is  sheltered  from  the  east  and  north. 
We  do  pity  the  babes  and  their  mothers  in  the 
cottages  below  ;  and  there  is  no  denying  that  I 
am  painfully  stupefied  by  such  cold  as  we  have; 
but  my  aides  and  my  maids  are  all  as  well  and 
as  happy  as  if  we  had  the  making  of  the  season. 
It  is  a  daily  surprise  to  me  to  see  how  Jenny 
holds  out  and  on,  without  any  sort  of  relapse  ; 
yet  I  cannot  rise  above  the  anxiety  which  haunts 
me  in  the  midst  of  every  night  and  early  morn- 
ing—  dread  of  hearing  that  she  and  Miss  Good- 
win are  ill  with  the  cold  which  makes  me  so  ill. 
By  six  o'clock  I  can  stay  in  bed  no  longer.  My 
maid  and  I  (in  the  same  room)  turn  out  of  our 
beds  as  the  clock  strikes ;  she  puts  a  match  to 
the  fire,  and  goes  for  my  special  cup  of  tea 
(needed  after  my  bad  nights),  while  I  brush  my 
hair.  I  take  the  tea  to  the  window,  and  look 
out  for  the  lights  (Fox  How  usually  the  first)  as 
they  kindle  and  twinkle  throughout  the  valley 
—  Orion  going  down  behind  Loughrigg  as  day 
is  breaking.  Then  I  get  on  the  bed  for  half  an 
hour's  reading,  till  the  hot  water  comes  up.  By 
that  time  I  am  in  a  panic  about  my  aides ;  but 


THE  LAST   YEARS.  29 1 

as  soon  as  I  am  seated  at  my  little  table  ready 
for  breakfast,  in  come  the  dear  creatures,  as  gay 
as  larks,  with  news  how  the  glass  stands,  out- 
door and  in.  Out-door  (not  on  the  ground)  it  is 
somewhere  between  32°  and  40°  at  present ; 
and  in  my  room  (before  the  fire  has  got  up), 
from  50°  to  57°.  So  now  you  know  what  our 
present  life  and  climate  are  like. 

After  dinner — I  must  end  almost  before  I 
have  begun !  But,  have  you  seen,  in  any  news- 
paper, the  address  presented  to  Carlyle  on  his 
8oth  birthday  ?  I  had  no  doubt  about  subscrib- 
ing, and  my  name  is  there.  I  feel  great  defer- 
ence for  Masson,  who  asked  me ;  and  though  I 
do  not  agree  with  all  the  ascriptions  of  the 
address,  there  is  enough  in  which  I  do  heartily 
agree  to  enable  me  to  sign  ;  so  I  send  my 
sovereign  with  satisfaction.  I  shall  not  see  the 
medal,  not  even  a  bronze  one  (you  know  Car- 
lyle's  is  gold).  My  expenses  are  considerable 
at  present  (not  always),  and  I  must  not  spend  on 
such  an  object.  The  way  in  which  the  thing 
was  done  is  delicate.  Instead  of  overwhelm- 
ing the  old  man  with  a  deputation,  the  promot- 
ers had  the  packet  quietly  left  at  his  door.  It 
would  set  him  weeping  for  his  loneliness, —  that 
his  long-suffering,  faithful  wife  did  not  witness 
this  crowning  glory.  He  does  love  fame  (or  did), 
and  no  man  would  despise  such  a  tribute  as  this  ; 
but  I  think  he  will  find  it  oppressive.  What  a 
change  since  the  day  when  the  Edinburgh 
Review  was  obliged,  as  Jeffrey  said,  to  decline 
articles  from  Carlyle  —  much  as  he  wished  to 
aid  him — because  the  readers  could  not  tolerate 


2Q2  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

C.'s  writings !  And  that  was  after  his  now 
famous  "Burns"  article  had  appeared,  and 
founded  his  fame  in  America ! 

Did  you  see  that  the  Times  death-list  showed, 
in  two  days  last  week,  thirty-three  deaths  of 
persons  over  70,  eleven  of  whom  were  over  80  ? 
The  effect  of  the  cold  ! 

.  .  .  The  sick  and  aged  will  die  off  fast  this 
winter.  May  I  be  one ! 

January  25,  '76. 
DEAR  OLD  FRIEND, 

It  is  time  that  you  were  hearing  from  us  of 
the  marked  increase  in  my  illness  within  the 
few  days  since  I  last  reported  of  matters  of 
mutual  interest.  I  will  not  trouble  you  with 
disagreeable  descriptions  of  ailments  which 
admit  of  no  advantageous  treatment.  Last 
week  there  was,  as  twice  before  (and  now  again 
twice),  a  copious  hemorrhage  from  some  interior 
part,  by  which  I  am  much  weakened.  The 
cause  is  not  understood ;  and  what  does  it 
matter  ?  I  neither  know  nor  much  care  how  it 
happens  that  I  find  myself  sinking  more  rapidly 
than  hitherto.  All  I  know  is  that  1  am  fully 
satisfied  with  my  share  of  the  interest  and 
amusement  of  life,  and  of  the  value  of  the 
knowledge  which  has  come  to  me  by  means  of 
the  brain,  which  is  worth  all  the  rest  of  us. 

I  have  not  much  pain,  none  very  severe,  but 
much  discomfort.  At  times  I  see  very  badly, 
and  hear  almost  nothing;  and  then  I  recover 
more  or  less  of  both  powers.  There  is  so 
much  cramp  in  the  hands,  and  elsewhere,  that 


THE  LAST   YEARS.  293 

it  seems  very  doubtful  whether  you  and  other 
friends  will  hear  much  from  me  during  the 
(supposed)  short  time  that  I  shall  be  living. 
But  I  do  hope  you  will  let  me  hear,  to  the  last, 
of  your  interests  and  pursuits,  your  friendships 
and  companionships,  and  prospects  of  increas- 
ing wisdom.  I  cannot  write  more  to-day. 
Perhaps  I  may  become  able  another  day.  My 
beloved  niece  Jenny  is  well ;  better  here  than 
she  would  be  anywhere  else,  and  more  happy 
in  her  restoration  to  her  home  with  me  than  I 
can  describe.  I  could  easily  show  you  how  and 
why  my  death  within  a  short  time  may  be  for 
the  happiness  of  some  whom  I  love,  and  who 
love  me ;  and  if  it  should  be  the  severest  trial 
to  this  most  dear  helper  of  my  latter  days,  I 
am  sure  she  will  bear  it  wisely  and  well.  It 
cannot  but  be  the  happiest  thought  in  her  mind 
and  heart  —  what  a  blessing  she  has  been  to 
my  old  age !  What  have  not  you  been,  dear 
friend !  I  must  not  enter  on  that  now.  Jenny 
observed  this  morning  that  old  or  delicate 
people  live  wonderfully  long.  True!  but  I  hope 
my  term  will  be  short,  if  I  am  to  continue  as 
ill  as  at  present. 

The  end  was,  indeed,  approaching ;  and  now, 
when  at  the  worst  of  her  illness,  it  so  came 
about  that  she  was  asked  and  consented  to  do 
one  last  piece  of  writing  for  publication.  Her 
young  companion,  Miss  Goodwin,  had  translated 
Pauli's  Simon  de  Montfort,  and  Mr.  Triibner, 
unaware  of  course,  how  ill  Mrs.  Martifieau  was, 


294  HAKRIET  MARTINEAU. 

offered  to  publish  the  translation  on  the  con- 
dition that  she  would  write  an  introduction. 
She  would  not  refuse  this  favor  to  Miss 
Goodwin,  and  did  the  work  with  great  difficulty. 
It  was  characteristic  that  she  should  think  it 
necessary  to  take  the  trouble  to  read  the  whole 
MS.  before  writing  her  few  pages  of  introduc- 
tion^ 

She  was  now  nearing  her  seventy-fourth 
birthday;  and  the  strong  constitution  which 
had  worn  through  so  much  pain  and  labor  had 
almost  exhausted  its  vitality. 

Even  in  these  last  weeks  she  could  not  be 
idle.  Her  hands  were  cramped,  her  eyes  weak, 
her  sensations  of  fatigue  very  hard  to  bear; 
still,  she  not  only  continued  her  correspondence 
with  one  or  two  of  her  dearest  friends,  but  also 
went  on  with  her  fancy  work.  The  latter  was 
now  of  that  easiest  kind,  requiring  least  effort 
of  eye  and  thought  —  knitting.  She  occupied 
herself  with  making  cot  blankets,  in  double 
knitting,  for  the  babies  of  her  young  friends  ; 
some  of  them  among  her  poorer  neighbors, 
whom  she  had  known  when  they  were  little 
children  themselves  and  she  came  first  to 
Ambleside,  others  among  more  distant  and 
wealthier  couples.  She  finished  one  blanket 
early  in  the  year  1876,  for  a  baby  born  in 
Ambleside  in  the  January,  and  she  left  a  second 
one  unfinished  when  she  died. 


THE  LAST   YEARS. 

Babies  were  an  unfailing  delight  to  her,  to 
the  end.  Her  maids  knew  that  even  if  she 
were  too  ill  to  see  grown-up  visitors,  a  little 
child  was  always  a  welcome  guest,  for  at  least  a 
few  moments.  Her  letters  to  children  were 
altogether  charming,  and  so  were  her  ways  with 
them,  and  children  always  loved  her  with  all 
their  wise  little  hearts.  She  was  a  pleasant  old 
lady,  even  for  them  to  look  at.  The  expression 
of  the  countenance  became  very  gentle  and 
motherly,  when  the  strife  of  working  life  was 
laid  aside ;  the  eyes  were  ever  kind ;  and  the 
mouth  loved  to  laugh,  sternly  and  firmly  though 
it  could  at  times  be 'compressed.  She  wore  a 
large  cap  of  delicate  lace,  and  was  dainty  about 
her  person,  as  regarded  the  fairest  cleanliness. 
Plain  in  her  youth  and  middle  life,  she  had  now 
grown  into  a  beautiful  old  age  —  beauty  of  the 
kind  which  such  years  can  gain  from  the  impress 
on  the  features  of  the  high  thoughts  and 
elevated  emotions  of  the  past,  with  patience, 
lovingness,  and  serenity  in  the  present. 

Patient,  loving,  and  serene  the  last  years  of 
Harriet  Martineau  were.  Those  who  lived 
with  her  knew  less  than  her  correspondents  of 
what  she  suffered  ;  for  she  felt  it  a  duty  to  tell 
the  absent  what  they  could  not  see  for  them- 
selves of  her  state ;  but  to  her  household  she 
spoke  but  seldom,  comparatively,  of  her  painful 


296  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

sensations,  leaving  the  matter  to  their  own 
observation.  She  could  be  absorbed  to  the  last 
in  all  that  concerned  the  world  and  mankind ; 
and  she  was  equally  accessible  to  the  smaller 
and  more  homely  interests  of  the  quiet  daily 
life  of  her  inmates.  The  incidents  which  go  to 
show  what  she  was  in  her  domestic  circle  are 
but  trifling ;  but  what  is  it  that  makes  the  dif- 
ference between  an  intolerable  and  a  venerable 
old  age  (or  youth,  for  the  matter  of  that,  in 
domestic  life)  except  its  conduct  about  trifles  ? 
One  who  was  with  her  tells  of  her  delight  when 
a  basket  of  newly-fledged  ducklings  was  brought 
to  her  bedside,  before  ehe  was  up,  on  St. 
Valentine's  Day  in  the  year  of  her  death, 
offering  her  a  doggerel  tribute  as  follows  :  — 

St.  Valentine  hopes  you  will  not  scorn 

This  little  gift  on  St.  Valentine's  morn. 

We'd  have  come  with  the  chime  of  last  evening's  bells, 

But,  alas  !  we  could  not  break  our  shells  ! 

Then  another  remembers  her  amusement 
when  one  of  her  nephews  had  just  started  to  go 
to  the  coach  for  London,  and  the  doctor,  coming 
in  unannounced,  left  his  hat  on  the  hall  table, 
which  the  active  servant  seeing,  and  jumping 
to  the  conclusion  that  Mr.  Martineau  (travelling 
in  a  felt)  had  left  his  high  hat  behind  him, 
rushed  off  with  it  to  the  coach-office,  half  a  mile 


THE  LAST  YEARS.  297 

away  ;  so  that  when  the  doctor  wanted  to  go,  his 
hat  was  off  to  the  coach  ;  and  "  the  old  lady  did 
laugh  so."  Only  a  week  or  two  before  her 
death,  she  was  merry  enough  to  ask  her  doctor 
that  dreadful  punning  conundrum  about  the 
resemblance  between  an  ice-cream  vender,  and 
an  hydrophobic  patient  —  the  answer  turning 
on  the  legend  "  Water  ices  and  ice  creams " 
(water  I  sees,  and  I  screams)  —  telling  him  that 
it  was  ^professional  conundrum.  At  the  same 
time  she  was  kind  enough  to  repeat  to  him  the 
compliments  which  a  visitor  of  hers  had  been 
paying  his  baby.  This  was  the  lighter  side  of 
the  aged  woman's  life,  the  more  serious  aspect 
of  which  is  shown  in  some  of  her  letters  to  Mr. 
Atkinson.  The  last  of  these  letters  must  now 
be  given  : — 

AMBLESIDE,  May  19,  1876. 
DEAR  FRIEND, 

Jenny,  and  also  my  sister,  have  been  observ- 
ing that  you  ought  to  be  hearing  from  us, 
and  have  offered  to  write  to  you.  You  will  see 
at  once  what  this  means ;  and  it  is  quite  true 
that  I  have  become  so  much  worse  lately  that 
we  ought  to  guard  against  your  being  surprised, 
some  day  soon,  by  news  of  my  life  being  closed. 
I  feel  uncertain  about  how  long  I  way  live  in 
my  present  state.  I  can  only  follow  the  judg- 
ment of  unprejudiced  observers ;  and  I  see  that 
my  household  believe  the  end  to  be  not  far  off. 
I  will  not  trouble  you  with  disagreeable  details. 


298  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

It  is  enough  to  say  that  I  am  in  no  respect  better, 
while  all  the  ailments  are  on  the  increase.  The 
imperfect  heart-action  immediately  affects  the 
brain,  causing  the  suffering  which  is  worse  than 
all  other  evils  together,  —  the  horrid  sensation 
of  not  being  quite  myself.  This  strange,  dreamy 
non-recognition  of  myself  comes  on  every  evening, 
and  all  else  is  a  trifle  in  comparison.  But  there 
is  a  good  deal  more.  Cramps  in  the  hands 
prevent  writing,  and  most  other  employment, 
except  at  intervals.  Indications  of  dropsy  have 
lately  appeared  :  and  after  this,  I  need  not  again 
tell  you  that  I  see  how  fully  my  household 
believe  that  the  end  is  not  far  off.  Meantime  I 
have  no  cares  or  troubles  beyond  the  bodily 
uneasiness  (which,  however,  I  don't  deny  to  be 
an  evil).  I  cannot  think  of  any  future  as  at  all 
probable,  except  the  "  annihilation  "  from  which 
some  people  recoil  with  so  much  horror.  I  find 
myself  here  in  the  universe,  —  I  know  not  how, 
whence,  or  why.  I  see  everything  in  the  uni- 
verse go  out  and  disappear,  and  I  see  no  reason 
for  supposing  that  it  is  not  an  actual  and  entire 
death.  And  for  wypart,  I  have  no  objection  to 
such  an  extinction.  I  well  remember  the  pas- 
sion with  which  W.  E.  Forster  said  to  me,  "I 
had  rather  be  damned  than  annihilated."  If  he 
once  felt  five  minutes'  damnation,  he  would  be 
thankful  for  extinction  in  preference.  The  truth 
is,  I  care  little  about  it  any  way.  Now  that  the 
event  draws  near,  and  that  I  see  how  fully  my 
household  expects  my  death,  pretty  soon,  the 
universe  opens  so  widely  before  my  view,  and  I 
see  the  old  notions  of  death  and  scenes  to  follow 


THE  LAST  YEARS.  299 

to  be  so  merely  human — so  impossible  to  be 
true,  when  one  glances  through  the  range  of 
science — that  I  see  nothing  to  be  done  but  to 
wait  without  fear  or  hope,  or  ignorant  prejudice, 
for  the  expiration  of  life.  I  have  no  wish  for 
further  experience,  nor  have  I  any  fear  of  it. 
Under  the  weariness  of  illness  I  long  to  be 
asleep;  but  I  have  not  set  my  mind  in  any  state. 
I  wonder  if  all  this  represents  your  notions  at  all. 
I  should  think  it  does,  while  yet  we  are  fully 
aware  how  mere  a  glimpse  we  have  of  the 
universe  and  the  life  it  contains. 

Above  all,  I  wish  to  escape  from  the  narrow- 
ness of  taking  a  mere  human  view  of  things, 
from  the  absurdity  of  making  God  after  man's 
own  image,  etc. 

But  I  will  leave  this,  begging  your  pardon  for 
what  may  be  so  unworthy  to  be  dwelt  on. 
However,  you  may  like  to  know  how  the  case 
looks  to  a  friend  under  the  clear  knowledge  of 
death  being  so  near  at  hand.  My  hands  are 
cramped  and  I  must  stop.  My  sister  is  here 
for  the  whole  of  May,  and  she  and  Jenny  are 
most  happy  together.  Many  affectionate  rela- 
tions and  friends  are  willing  to  come  if  needed 
(the  Browns  among  others),  if  I  live  beyond 
July.  You  were  not  among  the  Boulogne  theo- 
logical petitioners,  I  suppose.  I  don't  know 

whether  you  can  use there?     I  was  very 

thankful  for  your  last,  though  I  have  said  noth- 
ing about  its  contents.  If  I  began  that,  I  should 
not  know  how  to  stop. 

So  good-bye  for  to-day,  dear  friend  ! 

Yours  ever, 

H.  M. 


300  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

The  internal  tumor  which  was  the  prime 
cause  of  her  malady  (an  entirely  different  kind 
of  thing,  however,  from  that  which  she  suffered 
from  at  Tynemouth),  had  long  been  the  source  of 
great  inconvenience,  compelling  her  to  descend 
the  stairs  backwards,  and  to  spend  much  time  in 
a  recumbent  position.  The  post  mortem  exami- 
nation made  by  her  medical  attendant,  at  the 
request  of  her  executors,  two  days  after  she  died, 
revealed  the  fact  that  this  tumor  was  the  true 
cause  of  her  sufferings.  She  never  knew  it 
herself.  Relying  on  the  statement  of  the 
eminent  men  whom  she  consulted  in  1855,  that 
it  was  the  heart  that  was  affected,  she  accepted 
that  as  her  fate.  It  was,  however,  the  slow 
growth  of  a  "dermoid  cyst"  which  made  her 
linger  till  such  an  age,  through  the  constant 
suffering  of  twenty-one  preceding  years. 

In  the  early  part  of  June,  1876,  she  nad  an 
attack  of  bronchitis,  and  though  medical  treat- 
ment subdued  this  speedily,  it  exhausted  her 
strength  greatly.  From  about  the  I4th  of  that 
month  — two  days  after  her  seventy-fourth  birth- 
day—  she  was  confined  to  her  room,  but  still 
rose  from  bed.  On  the  24th  she  was  too  ill  to 
get  up.  Then  drowsiness  gradually  increased 
and  in  a  little  while  she  sank  quietly  into  a 
dreamy  state,  in  which  she  seemed  to  retain 
consciousness  when  aroused,  but  was  too  weak 


THE  LAST  YEARS.  30 1 

to  either  take  food  or  to  speak.  At  last,  on  the 
2/th  of  June,  1876,  just  as  the  summer  sunset 
was  gilding  the  hills  that  she  knew  and  loved  so 
well,  she  quietly  and  peacefully  drew  her  last 
breath,  and  entered  into  eternal  rest. 

Truly  her  death  — not  only  the  last  moments, 
but  the  long  ordeal — might  stand  for  an  illus- 
tration of  the  saying  of  the  wise  men  of  old  — 
"  Keep  innocency,  and  take  heed  unto  the  thing 
that  is  right,  for  that  shall  bring  a  man  peace  at 
the  last." 

She  was  buried  amidst  her  kindred,  in  the  old 
cemetery  of  Birmingham  ;  and  upon  the  tomb- 
stone, where  it  stands  amidst  the  smoke,  there 
is  no  inscription  beyond  her  name  and  age,  and 
the  places  of  birth  and  death. 

More  was,  perhaps,  needless.  Her  works,  and 
a  yet  more  precious  possession,  her  character 
remain.  Faults  she  had,  of  course  —  the  neces- 
sary defects  of  her  virtues.  Let  it  be  said  that 
she  held  her  own  opinions  too  confidently  — 
the  uncertain  cannot  be  teachers.  Let  it  be 
said  that  her  personal  dislikes  were  many  and 
strong  —  it  is  the  necessary  antithesis  of  power- 
ful attachments.  Let  it  be  said  that  her  powers 
of  antagonism  at  times  were  not  sufficiently 
restrained  —  how,  without  such  oppugnancy, 
could  she  have  stood  forth  for  unpopular  truths  ? 
Let  all  that  detractors  can  say  be  said,  and  how 
much  remains  untouched  ! 


302  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

In  the  paths  where  Harriet  Martineau  trod  at 
first  almost  alone,  many  women  are  now  fol- 
lowing. Serious  studies,  political  activity,  a 
share  in  social  reforms,  an  independent,  self- 
supporting  career,  and  freedom  of  thought  and 
expression,  are  by  the  conditions  of  our  age, 
becoming  open  to  the  thousands  of  women  who 
would  never  have  dared  to  claim  them  in  the 
circumstances  in  which  she  first  did  so.  In  a 
yet  earlier  age  such  a  life,  even  to  such  powers 
as  hers,  would  have  been  impossible.  As  it 
was,  she  was  only  a  pioneer  of  the  new  order  of 
things  inevitable  under  the  advance  of  civiliza- 
tion and  knowledge.  .  The  printing-press,  which 
multiplies  the  words  of  the  thinker ;  the  steam- 
engine,  which  both  feeds  the  press  and  rushes 
off  with  its  product,  and  the  electric  telegraph, 
which  carries  thought  around  the  globe,  make 
this  an  age  in  which  mental  force  assumes  an  im- 
portance which  it  never  had  before  in  the  his- 
tory of  mankind.  Mind  will  be  more  and  more 
valued  and  cultivated,  and  will  grow  more  and 
more  influential ;  and  the  condition  and  status 
of  women  must  alter  accordingly.  Some  people 
do  not  like  this  fact  ;  and  no  one  can  safely 
attempt  to  foresee  all  its  consequences  ;  but  we 
can  no  more  prevent  it  than  we  can  return  to 
hornbooks,  or  to  trial  by  ordeal,  or  to  the  feudal 
tenure  of  land,  or  to  any  other  bygone  state  of 


THE  LAST  YEARS.  303 

social  affairs.  More  and  more  it  will  grow  cus- 
tomary for  women  to  study  such  subjects  as  Har- 
riet Martineau  studied ;  more  commonplace  will 
it  constantly  become  for  women  to  use  all  their 
mental  faculties,  and  to  exert  every  one  of  their 
powers  to  the  fullest  extent  in  the  highest  free- 
dom. What,  then,  have  we  to  wish  about  that 
which  is  inevitable,  except  that  the  old  high 
womanly  standard  of  moral  excellence  may  be 
no  whit  lowered,  but  may  simply  be  carried 
into  the  wider  sphere  of  thought  and  action  ? 

It  may  do  much,  indeed,  for  us  that  we  have 
had  such  a  pioneer  as  Harriet  Martineau.  It  is 
not  only  that  she  lived  so  that  all  worthy  people, 
however  differing  from  her  in  opinion,  respected 
and  honored  her  —  though  that  is  much.  It  is 
not  only  that  she  has  settled,  once  for  all,  that 
a  woman  can  be  a  political  thinker  and  a  teacher 
from  whom  men  may  gladly  receive  guidance  — 
though  that  is  much.  But  the  great  value  of 
her  life  to  us  is  as  a  splendid  example  of  the 
moral  qualities  which  we  should  carry  into  our 
widest  sphere,  and  which  we  should  display  in 
our  public  exertions. 

She  cared  for  nothing  before  the  truth  ;  her 
efforts  to  discover  it  were  earnest  and  sincere, 
for  she  spared  no  pains  in  study  and  no  labor  in 
thought  in  the  attempt  to  form  her  opinions 
correctly.  Having  found  what  she  must  believe 
to  be  a  right  cause  to  uphold,  or  a  true  word  to 


304  HARRIET  MARTINEAU. 

speak,  no  selfish  consideration  intruded  between 
her  and  her  duty.  She  could  risk  fame,  and 
position,  and  means  of  livelihood,  when  neces- 
sary, to  unselfishly  support  and  promulgate 
what  she  believed  it  to  be  important  for  mankind 
to  do  and  believe.  She  longed  for  the  well- 
being  of  her  kind ;  and  so  unaffectedly  and 
honestly  that  men  who  came  under  her  influ- 
ence were  stimulated  and  encouraged  by  her  to 
share  and  avow  similar  high  aims.  Withal, 
those  who  lived  with  her  loved  her ;  she  was  a 
kind  mistress,  a  good  friend,  and  tender  to  little 
children  ;  she  was  truly  helpful  to  the  poor  at 
her  gates,  and  her  life  was  spotlessly  pure. 

Is  not  this  what  we  should  all  strive  to  be? 
Shall  we  not  love  knowledge,  and  use  it  to  find 
out  truth  ;  and  place  outspoken  fidelity  to  con- 
science foremost  amongst  our  duties ;  and  care 
for  the  progress  of  our  race  rather  than  for  our 
own  fame  ;  shall  we  not  be  truthful,  and  honest, 
and  upright  —  and,  to  this  end,  brave  —  in  pub- 
lic as  in  private  life ;  and  shall  we  not  seek  so 
to  bear  ourselves  that  men  shall  shrink  from 
owning  their  ignobler  thoughts  and  baser  shifts 
to  us,  but  shall  never  fear  to  avow  high  aims  and 
pure  deeds,  while  yet  we  retain  our  womanly 
kindness  and  all  our  domestic  virtues  un- 
changed ?  All  this  we  may  know  that  we  can 
be  and  do,  if  we  will ;  for  we  have  seen  it  exem- 
plified in  the  life  of  Harriet  Martineau. 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers'  Publications. 


JFamous  SEomen  Series. 


MARY   WOLLSTONECRAFT. 

BY 

ELIZABETH     ROBINS     PENNELL. 

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"So  far  as  it  has  been  published,  and  it  has  now  reached  its  ninth  volume,  the 
Famous  Women  Series  is  rather  better  on  the  whole  than  the  English  Men  of 
Letters  Series.  One  had  but  to  recall  the  names  and  characteristics  of  some 
of  the  women  with  whom  it  deals, — literary  women,  like  Maria  I-.dgeworth, 
Margaret  Fuller,  Mary  Lamb,  Emily  Bronte,  George  Eliot,  and  George  Sand; 
women  of  the  world  (not  to  mention  the  other  parties  in  that  well-known  Scrip- 
tural firm),  like  the  naughty  but  fascinating  Countess  of  Albany;  and  women  of 
philanthropy,  of  which  the  only  example  given  here  FO  far  is  Mrs.  Elizabeth 
Fry,  —  one  has  but  to  compare  the  intellectual  qualities  of  the  majority  of  English 
men  of  letters  to  perceive  that  the  former  are  the  moist  difficult  to  handle,  and 
that  a  series  of  which  they  are  the  heroines  is,  if  successful,  a  remarkable  col- 
lection of  biographies.  We  thought  so  as  we  read  Miss  I'lincl's  study  of  George 
Sand,  and  Vernon  Lee's  study  of  the  Countess  of  Albany,  and  we  think  so  now 
that  we  have  read  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Robins  Pennell's  study  of  Mary  Wollstone- 
craft,  who,  with  all  her  faults,  was  an  honor  to  her  sex.  She  was  not  so  consid- 
ered while  she  lived,  except  by  those  who  knew  her  well,  nor  for  years  after  her 
death ;  but  she  is  so  considered  now,  even  by  the  granddaughters  of  the  good 
ladies  who  so  bitterly  condemned  her  when  the  century  was  new.  She  was 
notable  for  the  sacrifices  that  she  made  for  hei  worthless  father  and  her  weak, 
inefficient  sisters,  for  her  dogged  persistence  and  untiring  industry,  and  for  her 
independence  and  her  courage.  The  soul  of  goodness  was  in  her,  though  she 
would  be  herself  and  go  on  her  own  way  ;  and  if  she  loved  not  wisely,  according 
to  the  world's  creed,  she  loved  too  well  for  her  own  happiness,  and  paid  the 
penalty  of  suffering.  What  she  might  have  been  if  she  had  not  met  Capt. 
Gilbert  Imlay,  who  was  a  scoundrel,  and  William  Godwin,  who  was  a  philosopher, 
can  only  be  conjectured.  She  was  a  force  in  literature  and  in  the  enfranchise- 
ment of  her  sisterhood,  and  as  such  was  worthy  of  the  remembrance  which  she 
will  long  retain  through  Mr*.  Pennell's  able  memoir."  —  R  H.  Stoddard,  in  tk* 
Mail  and  Express. 


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HARRIET   MARTINEAU. 

BY  MRS.  F.  FENWICK   MILLER. 

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"  The  almost  uniform  excellence  of  the  '  Famous  Women  '  series  is  well  sus- 
tained in  Mrs.  Fenwick  Miller's  life  of  Harriet  Martineau,  the  latest  addition  to 
this  little  library  of  biography.  Indeed,  we  are  disposed  to  rank  it  as  the  best  of 
the  lot.  The  subject  is  an  entertaining  one,  and  Mrs.  Miller  has  done  her  work 
admirably.  Miss  Martineau  was  a  remarkable  woman,  in  a  century  that  has  not 
been  deficient  in  notable  characters.  Her  native  genius,  and  her  perseverance  in 
developing  it ;  her  trials  and  afflictions,  and  the  determination  with  which  she  rose 
superior  to  them  ;  her  conscientious  adherence  to  principle,  and  the  important 
place  which  her  writings  hold  in  the  political  and  educational  literature  of  her  day, 
—  all  combine  to  make  the  story  of  her  life  one  of  exceptional  interest.  .  .  .  With 
the  exception,  possibly,  of  George  Eliot,  Harriet  Martineau  was  the  greatest  of 
English  women.  She  was  a  poet  and  a  novelist,  but  not  as  such  did  she  make 
good  her  title  to  distinction.  Much  more  noteworthy  were  her  achievements  in 
other  lines  of  thought,  not  usually  essayed  by  women.  She  was  eminent  as  a 
political  economist,  a  theologian,  a  journalist,  and  a  historian.  .  .  .  But  to  attempt 
a  mere  outline  of  her  life  and  works  is  out  of  the  question  in  our  limited  space. 
Her  biography  should  be  read  by  all  in  search  of  entertainment." — Professor 
Woods  in  Saturday  Mirror. 

"The  present  volume  has  already  shared  the  fate  of  several  of  the  recent  biog- 
raphies of  the  distinguished  dead,  and  has  been  well  advertised  by  the  public  con- 
tradiction of  more  or  less  important  points  in  the  relation  by  the  living  friends  of  the 
dead  genius.  One  of  Mrs.  Miller's  chief  concerns  in  writing  this  life  seems  to 
have  been  to  redeem  the  character  of  Harriet  Martineau  from  the  appearance  of 
hardness  and  unamiability  with  which  her  own  autobiography  impresses  the 
reader.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Miller,  however,  succeeds  in  this  volume  in  showing  us  an  alto- 
gether different  side  to  her  character,  — a  home-loving,  neighborly,  bright-natured, 
tender-hearted,  witty,  lovable,  and  altogether  womanly  woman,  as  well  as  the  clear 
thinker,  the  philosophical  reasoner,  and  comprehensive  writer  whom  we  already 
knew." —  The  Index. 

"  Already  ten  volumes  in  this  library  are  published ;  namely,  George  Eliot, 
Emily  Bronte,  George  Sand,  Mary  Lamb,  Margaret  Fuller,  Maria  Edgeworth, 
Elizabeth  Fry,  The  Countess  of  Albany,  Mary  Wollstonecraft,  and  the  present 
volume.  Surely  a  galaxy  of  wit  and  wealth  of  no  mean  order  !  Miss  M.  will 
rank  with  any  of  them  in  womanliness  or  gifts  or  grace.  At  home  or  abroad, 
itxpublic  or  private.  She  was  noble  and  true,  and  her  life  stands  confessed  a  suc- 
cess. True,  she  was  literary,  but  she  was  a  home  lover  and  home  builder.  She 
never  lost  the  higher  aims  and  ends  of  life,  no  matter  how  flattering  her  success. 
This  whole  series  ought  to  be  read  by  the  young  ladies  of  to-day.  More  of  such 
biography  would  prove  highly  beneficial."  —  Troy  Telegram. 

Our  publications  are  for  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  will  be 
mailed,  post-paid,  on  receipt  of  price. 

ROBERTS  BROTHERS,  BOSTON. 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers'  Publications. 


Jfamous  SEomcn  Series. 


RACHEL. 

By  Mrs.  NINA  H.  KENNABD. 
One  Volume.    16mo.    Cloth.   Price,  $1.00. 


"  Rachel,  by  Nina  H.  Kennard,  is  an  interesting  sketch  of  the  famous 
woman  whose  passion  and  genius  won  for  her  an  almost  unrivalled  fame  as 
an  actress.  The  story  of  Rachel's  career  is  of  the  most  brilliant  success  in 
art  and  of  the  most  pathetic  failure  in  character.  Her  faults,  many  and 
grievous,  are  overlooked  in  this  volume,  and  the  better  aspects  of  her  nature 
and  history  are  recorded."  —  Hartford  Courant. 

"  The  book  is  well  planned,  has  been  carefully  constructed,  and  is 
pleasantly  written." —  The  Critic. 

"  The  life  of  Mile,  FJisa  Rachel  Felix  has  never  been  adequately  told, 
and  the  appearance  of  her  biography  in  the  '  Famous  Women  Series  '  of 
Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers  will  be  welcomed.  .  .  .  Vet  we  must  be  glad  the 
book  is  written,  and  welcome  it  to  a  place  among  the  minor  biographies ; 
and  because  there  is  nothing  else  so  good,  the  volume  is  indispensable  to 
library  and  study."  —  Boston  Evening  Traveller. 

"Another  life  of  the  great  actress  Rachel  has  been  written.  It  forms 
part  of  the  '  Famous  Women  Series,'  which  that  firm  is  now  bringing  out, 
and  which  already  includes  eleven  volumes.  Mrs.  Kennard  deals  with  her 
subject  much  more  amiably  than  one  or  two  of  the  other  biographers  Iwe 
done.  She  has  none  of  those  vindictive  feelings  which  are  so  obvious  in 
Madame  B.'s  narrative  of  the  great  tragedienne.  On  the  contrary,  she 
wants  to  be  fair,  and  she  probably  is  as  fair  as  the  materials  which  came  into 
her  possession  enabled  her  to  be.  The  endeavor  has  been  made  to  show  us 
Rachel  as  she  really  was,  by  relying  to  a  great  extent  upon  her  letters.  .  .  . 
A  good  many  stories  that  we  are  familiar  with  are  repeated,  and  some  are 
contradicted.  From  first  to  last,  however,  the  sympathy  of  the  author  is 
ardent,  whether  she  recounts  the  misery  of  Rachel's  childhood,  or  the  splen- 
did altitude  to  which  she  climbed  when  her  name  echoed  through  the  world 
and  the  great  ones  of  the  earth  vied  in  doing  her  homage.  On  this  account 
Mrs.  Kennard's  book  is  a  welcome  addition  to  the  pre-existing  biographies 
of  one  of  the  greatest  actresses  the  world  ever  saw."—  N.  Y.  Evening 
Telegram. 

• 

Sold  everywhere.     Mailed  postpaid,  by  the  Publishers, 

ROBERTS    BROTHERS,  BOSTON. 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers   Publications. 


JFamous 


MADAME    ROLAND. 

BY   MATHILDE    BLIND, 

AUTHOR    OF    "GEORGE    ELIOT'S    LIFE." 
One  volume.     i6mo.     Cloth.     Price,  $1.00. 


"Of  all  the  interesting  biographies  published  in  the  Famous  Women  Series, 
Mathilde  Blind's  life  of  Mme.  Roland  is  by  far  the  most  fascinating.  .  .  .  But 
no  one  can  read  Mme  Roland's  thrilling  story,  and  no  one  can  study  the  character 
of  this  noble,  heroic  woman  without  feeling  certain  that  it  is  good  for  the  world  to 
have  every  incident  of  her  life  brought  again  before  the  public  eye.  Among  the 
famous  women  who  have  been  enjoying  a  new  birth  through  this  set  of  short 
biographies,  no  single  one  has  been  worthy  of  the  adjective  great  until  we  come 
to  Mme.  Roland.  .  .  . 

"We  see  a  brilliant  intellectual  women  in  Mme.  Roland;  we  see  a  dutiful 
daughter  and  devoted  wife  ;  we  see  a  woman  going  forth  bravely  to  place  her  neck 
under  the  guillotine,  — a  woman  who  had  been  known  as  the  '  Soul  of  the  Giron- 
dins ; '  and  we  see  a  woman  struggling  with  and  not  being  overcome  by  an  intense 
and  passionate  love.  Has  history  a  more  heroic  picture  to  present  us  with?  Is 
there  any  woman  more  deserving  of  the  adjective  'great'  ? 

"  Mathilde  Blind  has  had  rich  materials  from  which  to  draw  for  Mme.  Roland's 
biography.  She  writes  graphically,  and  describes  some  of  the  terrible  scenes 
in  the  French  Revolution  with  great  picturesqueness.  The  writer's  sympathy 
with  Mme.  Roland  and  her  enthusiasm  is  very  contagious;  and  we  follow  her 
record  almost  breathlessly,  and  with  intense  feeling  turn  over  the  last  few  pages 
of  this  little  volume.  No  one  can  doubt  that  this  life  was  worth  the  writing, 
and  even  earnest  students  of  the  French  Revolution  will  be  glad  to  refresh  their 
memories  of  Lamartine's  '  History  of  the  Girondins,'  and  again  have  brought 
vividly  before  them  the  terrible  tragedy  of  Mme.  Roland's  life  and  death."  — 
Boston  Evening  Transcript. 

"  The  thrilling  story  of  Madame  Roland's  genius,  nobility,  self-sacrifice,  and 
death  loses  nothing  in  its  retelling  here.  The  material  has  been  collected  and 
arranged  in  an  unbroken  and  skilfully  narrated  sketch,  each  picturesque  or  exciting 
incident  being  brought  out  into  a  strong  light.  The  book  is  one  of  the  best  in  an 
excellent  series."  —  Christian  Union. 


For  sale  by  all  booksellers.     Mailed,  post-paid,  on  receipt 
of  price  by  the  publishers, 

ROBERTS   BROTHERS,   BOSTON. 


University  of  California 
SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 
Return  this  material  to  the  library 
lien  it  was  borrowed. 


JAN  15  1930 


S90- 


